A few years back I had a discussion with a club owner who was promoting his business as folk. The music that was put on once a week was on a few occasions folk. However, I asked why there were people showing up with amplifiers and electronic machines: guitars, basses, trap sets, etc. I asked how 'de blues' or 'c+w' music was folk. How rockish songwriter stuff was folk. He admitted he didn't know what else to call it, so folk in his world was juat a catch-all name that had no real meaning to either the music his club presented or the people/groups he booked. I left the conversation saying 'You can call a fish a dog . . .' Inevitably it boils down to that old saw from Lewis Carroll: “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.”