I was reading a short piece in today's The Guardian about the new AQA GCSE Music Syllabus. It is on their website in a rather more extended version than appears in the paper. The sentence that caught my eye was this one:-

For "traditional music", students will study songs from Santana's 17th album, Supernatural, which won nine Grammy awards after its release in 1999.

So the rising generation of young music students are going to be taught that "traditional music" is to be found on a best-selling album of pleasant, but unremarkable Latin-tinged middle of the road rock music with the songs and music written by the band members and not what a dictionary would call a "traditional" item in sight. All the thousands of tune session musicians all over these islands might like to know that the tunes you are playing need a new genre definition.

I am reminded again of Lewis Caroll's Through the Looking Glass and what he tells us of Humpty-Dumpty's conversation with Alice:-

"When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all."

Right! That's my rant over, but I dare say others may want to contribute.