No, Spleen, it says that if that degree of baffle-gab is needed for Sweeney's "argument" that argument can't have anything to do with anyone or anything other than baffle-gab merchants. Take me to a pub anywhere in the country where the working man, the historical possessor of the music that Sweeney says the baffle-gab merchants stole from that possessor, would have any idea what Sweeney was saying.

It's simply pseud's corner come to life.

As to your onanistic quotation, Sweeney, you make my point. It was not the chattering classes who preserved and evolved folk music. It was ordinary people, not by design, not in specified combination, but by the aggregate effect of their individual decisions and errors.

If it was good vicars and professors who took that notes that preserved that, what's your problem? Better it be noted and available thereafter than not.