"If you're that afraid of the word, don't do the song."

What a shame it would be if we had to lose every good song ever written (or handed down orally) that had a single offensive word in it!

Songs, both "folk" and other kinds, do get changed up here and there, both in tune and lyrics, over time.   That's not likely to stop.   And I'd much rather a word or two be changed because the original lyric is now (or maybe always was) really offensive to many people than just because somebody forgot a line or misheard it and then the incorrect (and quite possibly inferior) lyric gets passed on to the point where most people think it's right.