It isn't correct to say the term 'folk music' wasn't coined to describe a style, it was coined to describe its origins and how it was disseminated. It has since come to mean a style, but on the whole this really means American/British Isles/Australian music. Only a specialist would label, for example, Arabic or Japanese traditional music as 'folk'.   

I sympathise entirely with what Jim Carroll is trying to say, but that particular horse has bolted, at least so far as the general public is concerned. However this is supposed to be a specialist forum for people with a particular interest in folk music, however you define it, and I feel it is a pity that we can't agree to use the language in a more precise way.

I find it ironic that it is when the word is used in its broadest sense, when it should be most inclusive, it turns out to be most divisive. On the one hand, Jim complains that a club where no traditional songs are performed shouldn't call itself a 'folk' club, on the other hand Al gives the impression that he feels he is only let into the folk clubs on sufferance and is not given the respect he feels he deserves because what he performs is not traditional folk.

My own experience is that I don't think I've ever been in a folk club which was exclusively traditional or exclusively modern (although in the 70s some clubs did label themselves as 'contemporary folk', which should be clear enough to warn off those of Jim's persuasion). Most clubs I found struck a balance between the two.