Like so many of the arguements in here most of this is completely vacuuous because people criticise what others say by pointing out the bloody obvious; that there is another way to look at it. Words, ballads or any other word, dont get used in a vacuum they get used in context; in conversation or in the middle of some text. It is completely bogus to harumph about communication being damaged by a failure to agree a single definition for a word. but then so many people are obsessed by pointing out how superior they are to the hoi poloi. That always struck me as being quite funny from people who profess to uphold the importance of folk music, the untutored music of the hoi poloi of lomg ago.

In the middle of a discussion it does not take a great deal of wit to think about what is being said and work out whether we are talking about ancient b "big songs " or 20th century story songs.

If you want to ask a meaningful question narrow it down a bit. There are many kinds of ballads which would be recognised by the disparate membership of this forum. You could add a modifier; child allads, bothy ballads, border ballads buchan ballads, pop ballads, power ballads if you really were interested in a particular area.

On the other hand if you want people to differ over their answers ask an ambiguous question.