"I have spent years defending trad from the encroachment of contemporary because I feel that orginizations like folksong societies need to differentiate one from the other. I have discovered that, while I am still convinced of my position, there are factors existant, today, that were not available when Greensleeves was written. First, the means of instant communication in the modern world make it less likely for a song to be spread, orally."

The problem, as I see it, is that we base our definition of "traditional" on the devices that were available in the past. Because "orally" was the main mode of transmission of the songs (due to lack of other types of recording and perhaps lack of fundamental reading and writing skills in some cases)we use "orally" as a deciding factor. Is that a true hallmark, or are we putting emphasis on it because we see it as "evidence" in the music we study?   

If a scientist were to do a study of people who write letters with pen and paper and discovered that 90% of letter writing is done by people over the age of 60 and only 10% of people under 60 sit down to write letters, what would that tell us?   Would we say that letter writing is a dead art, or would we look further to see that most people under 60 are now communicating by using e-mail?   Traditions are living customs - they do not have to be set in stone.   

Mike, you also said that "Traditions, however, need not be more widespread than a family whistle or automobile trip singalong."    Most families that I know grow. When my kids were young, we may have sung "row, row row your boat" on a car trip. Now that my kids are teenagers, the car trip singalong has evolved. We might singalong to a pop tune on the radio or pull out a favorite song from recent years, but the point is our tradition is still alive - even if the songs change.   

Yes, a point can be made that "row row row your boat" is more a "traditional" song - but what is the point? Why set such strict guidelines that end up clouding the picture of why songs were important in the first place?   A musicologist may have needs to do just that, but when it starts filtering down to influence just how music should be made - we all lose somethign.