Sinister Supporter -

Looking again at your original post and those that followed, a few things occur to me:

First of all, you are comparing unlike things. The 1954 definition was for all intents and purposes an anthropological definition, something that could be applied across time and space to any number of vernacular musical forms. As Jim Carroll has pointed out, the use of the term 'folk' in the definition is consistent with its use in folklore, folk dance, etc. Your re-definition (regardless of whether you think of it as so, that is basically what you are doing) applies to the folk clubs you frequent in England. This isn't even apples and oranges, it's more like hothouses and cultivated forests.

Secondly, I'm still not sure how you feel about the state of affairs you describe in folk clubs. In some of your earlier posts, you sound positively giddy regarding the 'anything goes' approach, and then you go and tell us that this "has been the cause of much despair in my life for a most of that time."   

Finally, what exactly was your purpose in starting this thread? You tell us, "The main purpose of this thread was, in essence, to sort out the wheat from the chaff - the wheat being Traditional Song, the chaff being all the other stuff currently being done In the Name of Folk, and carries the greater pragmatic weight by way of definition." – But this is NOT what you said in your original post.