My access to the web was down over the weekend, and I think Tim has covered most of the points I initially wanted to raise. I would like to add the following thoughts however.

It seems to me that we are back in "What is folk" territory.

Firstly it is clear from personal experience that songs involving either "fowl" language or, more frequently the expectation of such language, (for example :

…A young lady who walked like a duck
and said she’d invented a new way to -
educate young children to sew and to knit,
while down in the caw shed they shovelled the -
contents of the cowshed from the back to the front
while the pretty young milkmaid counted the hairs on her -
cows back which were nine inches long,
and if you think this song's dirty you’re BLOODY WELL WRONG!!)

will exist and be embellished long after more "serious" efforts are lost. The retention relying mainly on exactly the kind of reaction elicited from the anonymous contributors at the beginning of this thread.

Secondly, I would suggest that any definition of folk must include, although not necessarily be limited to, the following:
1. be sung by "folk"
2. Exist in and be embellished by the oral tradition *independently* of any written or recorded versions.

On both counts then this genre must be included as "folk".

It is inevitable that within such a wide diversity that folk song covers, there will be subject matter and treatments that "offend" some people. My own particular interests are predominantly in the area of folk songs engendered and derived from the industrial tradition and I am sure that there are some Mudcat devotees who would find my views and some songs on the evils of capitalism contrary to their own, but the kind of reaction seen here seems to be limited to postings involving words in common usage for sexual matters. I can’t explain it, and put forward no comment other than to note this fact. I suppose my base position is that no one has the right to not to be offended if we are to enable a complete exchange of views and information in a global forum, and remember that as Mudcat members we should have more in common than we have to divide us.

Pete M