Huh, am I the only one who has intentionally started callling them folders on Linux as well? The problem is that the world has gotten more complex over the years and “directory” no longer has a unique meaning. In fact Windows users especially may think of folders as that UI thing, and directories as the thing that has all the user accounts (and of course accounts may no longer uniquely mean users so you need to be more explicit there as well).

Most of my career, “directories” was the proper term. However After more miscommunications in the last decade or so, I changed my phrasing to account for human error.

And don’t get me started on tools like GitLab, where folders are called “groups”, or another that calls them “portfolios”