From a post-revival perspective the term Traddy (to give it its official spelling) is used by those whose muse is embedded in the old singers rather than the new ones. The orthodoxy of folk is a revival orthodoxy however - lumpen and conservative on one hand; easy listening MOR on the other - which sits uneasy with the essentially fluid & feral nature of traditional song as far as we may understand it from the available taxidermy & fossil record. Problem is, the Academic Approach is concerned with a taxonomy of the taxidermy rather than a more philosophical speculation on the nature of the beast itself and how that intersects with other forms of Popular Music which one could argue evolved directly from them. This approach sees Tradition as a dynamic, fluid, and constantly evolving phenomenon, a living process rather than something which endlessly repeats itself out of a sense of reverence for something which, in all probability, never existed in the first place. It's like seeing BIRDS as creatures that evolved from DINOSAURS; it celebrates continuance rather than bemoaning extinction. As a Post-Revival Traddy I believe in the Traditional Nature of all music, with the possible exception of Folk, which is perhaps too a little self-consciously precious in respect of its own correctness to be truly dynamic and, therefore, truly traditional in a way that other musics just are in terms their constantly shifting idiom / genre / call it what you will. How else might me compare (say) Freddy and the Dreamers to Joy Division? They were both Manchester rock 'n' roll bands with lead singers who were noted for their onstage antics, but otherwise...

At the end of the day, it's all a matter of pragmatics and preference. To many Traditional simply means Old Fashioned, as in Traditional Fish and Chips or In the Tradition and that's fine too, so there'll be some Traddys who'll see things differently. That's they key - seeing things differently, or at least appreciating that there will always be different ways of seeing things; new ways, old ways, but all them traditional, one would hope.