GUEST Steamin' Willie: the stereotype that this thread started describing before it became another what is folk.

Thank you, Steam. As the person who started this thread and is truly staggered by its length and the effects of blowback, I must say that the last thing I had in mind was another "what the f**k is f**k?" war between the usual suspects beating each other around the heads with prejudices, dictionaries and hot air ballons.

For what it's worth, in spite of it all - and I must admit to not having carefully read every word due to my war wound - I'm still not entirely sure my original question was answered. Yes, lots of people have popped up wearing their stereotypes with pride, but whether the term "purist" is correctly applied is questionable. There's been an awful lot of narrow minded, close-horizoned, lack of broad experience low level bigotry expressed, but that's not being a "purist" because to be a "purist", surely you have to not only know and love your field but also have good knowledge of everything else surrounding it or you can't possibly make value judgements. I don't see a lot of that: I see a lot of "I know about what I think is folk and I don't like the other stuff because I've hardly experienced it." Surely that's not being a purist, it's rather more like being an old (or insert age range of choice) fart.

But thank you all, I think.

Ken