> "people will call it whatever they wish" Doesn't mean a damn thing.

In fact it means plenty. It means that current scholars disagree with each other about what they mean by "folksong," just as some scholars   disagree with the musicians.

You too, Jim, can use the word in ways that seem most appropriate, and most of the time I'll be inclined to agree with you.

But it's pointless to expect and demand that others, from John and Jane Zilch to the academics we've mentioned, will suddenly reverse course and take a more discriminating view. They don't want to. They don't feel a need to (just the opposite, really). They won't.