I should have added that the point of the above is that 'folk' or 'traditional' needs to have a UNequivocal meaning in order to be used freely. If you have a very loose definition, and I have a narrow one, we will not get far...but so many just want it to be some ambiguous concept that they can mold to fit their needs.

...and so we have 47 old threads .. (I have proposed a 'system' for deciding whether a song is 'folk' several times...it is probably somewhere in that list 'spaw posted)