"But here's what I really don't get:----- Why is it so important to all these singer-songwriters/contemp-song-performers, whatevers -- -- that their music should be known by the same name as a genre which has had a precise and universally recognised designation since the term "folklore" was coined by William Thoms in 1846?"

"if you have so little respect for our tradition as you appear to from your posts here, why do you want to hang your hat on the 'folk' peg at all?"

Here's a fairy story:

Once upon a time a few comfortable, middle class types found a store of songs and tunes from an unexpected source, the working folk. They studied collected and published them, calling them Folk Songs. Decades later a few comfortable socialist revolutionary types started to re-collected these songs from the "working class" and even began singing them; then began writing their own songs in the same idiom. This gave some of these armchair socialists a certain status and fame within socialist-leaning intellectual circles and they became known as Folk Singers. A few years later still along came some other young wanna-be revolutionaries who hadn't got the time to study and learn from the original sources but they copied these socialists Folk Singers and, lo and behold they began to gain some status and fame themselves, partly by using the same name, Folk Singers, but in the main because they had some talent themselves as song writers and singers. Then along came some others.   They enjoyed singing and playing but the majority couldn't be bothered to really study and understand the old songs and they didn't have enough talent to be invited to sing anywhere. Still they thought if they also called themselves Folk Singers a little bit of the fame and status of those who had studied and understood real folk song might still rub off on them. If you search really hard you might find that some of them still exist although, like hobbits, most people don't really notice them nowadays or pay much attention outside the few specialist circles who continue to discuss such things.

Of course this is just a story and couldn't apply to anyone in real life.