Brian ~~ You seem to me to be reinforcing my OP point with your word "blinkered". It is not blinkered to be aware of the existence of categories within which artefacts may be usefully placed in order to facilitate communication. It need not be a value-judgment; and categories of the sort that the word 'purist' presupposes need not be entirely self-contained, but can be straddled. But I once wrote, in a Defence Of Categories piece for Folk Review, "If every article of household furniture was called a chair, we wouldn't know where to park our arses." I remember Peter Bellamy, who has been much mentioned on this thread, liked my formulation & used often to quote it. It didn't alter the fact that he would rather hear the Stones than a folk record after a gig; and once, when visiting us, as we played Scrabble, he asked for a record which was anything but folk and enjoyed the Brandenburg Concerto that I opted for; but he admitted that differentiating these categories, recognising their differences and not indulging in the syllogism, also part of that FR article, of "I like folk; I like Cole Porter, ∴ Cole Porter is Folk. I happen," I continued, "to like both eating and the works of Jane Austen; but that doesn't mean that I mistake Mansfield Park for a chip butty."

It is surely in recognising these distinctions, without necessarily making value judgments or denouncing anyone else's preferred categories, that 'purism' lies. What is 'blinkered' about that?

~M~