folk

folk

as an ordinary word for people in general is tending to fall out of use in BrE, except in northern parts of the country and occasionally elsewhere to denote a greater degree of affection than the word people does:

• Even folk who know little about Scotland have probably heard of the Trossachs —Scottish World, 1989

• What Ursula brought home every week made all the difference to the old folk —David Lodge, 1991.

It also survives strongly in certain specific uses:

1. As the last element of compounds and fixed expressions, or qualified by an adjective, as in menfolk, north-country folk, townsfolk, womenfolk. In general use, however, even these are beginning to sound somewhat jocular or precious.

2. In the plural (usually folks) to mean ‘one's parents or relatives’:

• That really messes us up if my folks try to get hold of me —L. Duncan, 1978

• The folks wouldn't like it too much —R. J. Conley, 1986.

Folks is also used as a light-hearted form of address to an audience by public entertainers, and this is sometimes imitated (in the second and third persons) for special effect by journalists and writers:

• Yes, folks, in 1990, 2,245 people were murdered in the city of New York —Bernard Levin, 1991

• Most folks don't really care that the music they download is in violation of copyright —website, AmE 2003.

3. In the singular as an elliptical form of the term folk music (see 4 below).

4. In attributive combinations in which folk is joined to a second word, some of the combinations being loan translations from German, e.g. folk-dance, folk-dancing, folk memory, folk music, folk-singer, folk-song, folk-tale, folk-ways; and especially in folklore.