Thank you Gg - glad you do not wish to strangle - but there are plenty, and plenty on this thread who say that we must not, unless we are good enough, otherwise the great consumers will not live us (bovvered?)

Difference with RnB or any other stylistic definition is that the style defines the genre. That is not so of folk. It is the music that comes from a particular view of culture if I may oversimplify, the music that evolved when mass media did not convey the music of the proletariat (including agricultural workers in that). Thus "folk music" was what had passed on mouth to ear. It works like "folk arts" "folk dance" "folk-tale" "folk medicine" etc etc.

If, with an open mind, you read the 1954 definition, you will see how it works. It also realates to what the musical encyclopaedias say (mostly).

I use no smelling salts (mostly alcohol) and am used to people not understanding, but it vexes me when people will not listen or read (but there I go again). Disagreement, fine (apart from on politics or religion) - but not wilful ignorance.

There is of course a modern vernacular music. But because it comes from a different well spring, it is not folk. It needs a name (like "new country") so that it need not steal one that is already taken.