OK, I see you're having some trouble. No sweat. We're all friends here. Many of us don't get it on the first try. Let me help you. It's a symbolic representation of an actual physical object which you can buy here today. There's a nice description at the store page with the following pic along with it:
I've been using nothing but Linux at home and work for 20 years and it's news to me that these words are not equal synonyms.
The only people that get upset over it are those whose entire personality are based on superficial bullshit like this because they don't have a personality, or just want to feel superior to someone else, or both.
I've been using Linux professionally for a couple of decades, and using it period since it was hard to install and Slackware came in the mail on ~50 floppy disks. There is not enough "Get off my lawn" in the world for those people.
I'll call the path container whatever I damned well please.
It's like GUID vs. UUID, for most contexts they have the same meaning. Then if the difference matters either the audience already knows this or the speaker needs to be very clear that they are using one meaning over the other.
Same, my entire work uses it, with software that primarily targets Linux and coworkers that are as nerdy as it gets. Never heard anyone ever complain about calling folders a folder.
A folder is the visual representation of a directory. A reasonable desktop GUI exposes the underlying files & directories as file icons and directory windows. If your abstraction leaks, that's a bug in your code, not something to beat the other guy up with. It is quite possible to be both a Linux dork and a classic Mac dork.
First shalt thou take out the Holy Filter. Then shalt thou Internet four porn, no more, no less. Four shall be the number thou shalt porn, and the porn of the Internet shall be four. Five shalt thou not porn, neither Internet thou three porn, excepting that thou then proceed to four. Six is right out. Once the number four, being the relationship of porn to the Internet, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall wank off.
I started out in the 90's calling them directories and still do for the most part. However, if I'm speaking to the average person I get a strange look when I say directory.
I had a new employee ask me what I meant when I used the word directory. They had never heard 'directory' used in that context. It has only been known as a folder to some people.