So what do you propose to replace it by?

I'm not proposing anything, MtheGM. That's why we have genres - all of which are idiomatically traditional and are born of traditional process. Call it what you like but don't say that any one music is magically qualified to be more traditional than another, or that folk is somehow different from other musics on account of the fecking folk process. Following this line, most of what happens in the name of folk in this country isn't folk at all, and that which is folk is no-longer actually traditional on account of it being performed by specialists & enthusiasts by way of revival & re-enactment because, as we all know by now, The Tradition and The Folk Process died the death long ago.

These days I avoid the word Folk anyway - the Old Songs of the English Speaking Idiomatic Oral Tradition are the Old Songs of the English Speaking Idiomatic Oral Tradition - the OSESIOT if you like - though they're not entirely Oral of course, as our erudite friends have been thrashing out over on the Music of the people..Don't make me laugh thread. But what is evident is that there was once a rare old tradition of song making and singing going on within an idiomatic discipline as exacting as any other craft or trade, and these songs continue to carry great personal & cultural potency for us today.

Hmmm - yeah I like that - I'm not a folk singer, I'm an OSESIOT singer!