Jim, there may be nothing to connect the ersatz with the real, or there may be much. It's a matter of personal taste and opinion - but they are NOT falling under the same classification. They are NOT both the same thing - any more than than primary red and generic red are the same. They are different things with the same name. One contains the other, that is all.

There are two different classifications here, an outer one and and an inner one, which happen (wrongly, stupidly, confusingly) to use the same word.

I've come up with a number of metaphors and careful explanations, yet you still seem to feel that we're trying to shoe-horn the wider description into the narrow, just because the label happens to be the same. We are not.

I'll have one final go, then I'll have to bow out.

'Grill' describes a type of restaurant, but also a kind of cooker. They have ovens and hobs and microwaves in the kitchen too. The chef knows only one machine makes toasted cheese, but he's happy for the whole business to be called a grill.

Or, to pick up on your metaphor, we have a tin of soup labelled 'folk.'

We have a larder labelled 'folk' - which contains the tin labelled 'folk.'

We are not cramming the contents of the larder into the tin.

We've just got a stupid muddle over names. And of those who recognise the problem and want to avoid future confusion, some want to re-label the tin, and some the larder.

As a majority believe that 'folk' means larder, and call the soup 'trad,' that's what's happened and is still happening. I don't know how or why it happened - I wasn't there. I only know it did - and the Wiki definition explains that pretty well too.

I'm sorry the old ways are gone. But that's not only happened in music. It's called society. And for everything we loose we gain something - some of which is actually better than what we had before. Like the minimum wage and health care.

Tom

PS Actually, though I haven't challenged the 54, I have, I hope, mounted a careful case for it for be viewed in context with the broader history of indigenous music - one that includes trade writers, writers-down and musicians.