"qualify your accusation or please withdraw it"

Wow. I feel that if you wrote another next line you would challenge me to a duel! Swords or pistols? Ouch!!

Let's get down to earth here. There are NO accusations, just observations.

You ask me to define, and I if you re-read the various posts that have been made you will realize I already did.   Short of drawing pictures, I'm not sure what else is needed.

I AM NOT DISAGREEING WITH YOUR DEFINITION OF FOLK MUSIC.   I am only interpreting the 1954 as it is written. The words "transmission" and "community" are a reflection of the time in which it was written and the modes available at the time. If you examine our current communities and technology that has impacted it, you will discover changes have occured.    Folk music is a living tradition.

"This is simply an argument on what we call our different categories of music - pop, folk, jazz, classical, swing, chamber, rock, - can I assume that, if you object to anybody labelling their music folk, you also object to all other identifying labels, or would this be, as I believe it to be, very, very stupid?"

Could I check your reading glasses? That is a very, very stupid question to ask. I'm not objecting to catagories, I'm objecting to allowing the catagories to limit us - according to the topic of this thread that Conrad stated in his first post. As you stated, there is a need for songwriters.