"Folder" makes perfect sense to me. At my first job, we used a paper-based filing system, and we'd sometimes put folders inside of other folders. It's perfect

"Folder" makes perfect sense to me. At my first job, we used a paper-based filing system, and we'd sometimes put folders inside of other folders. It's perfectly legit. You wouldn't nest them 5 levels deep, but that's simply a physical limitation: you wouldn't put 100 files in one folder, either. "Directory" I don't understand at all. The only thing I can think of is the felt letter boards at the entrance to office buildings that say "DR SMITH - OFFICE 555". Not only are those a more obscure metaphor, but I've never seen them nested even one level deep. I don't have any idea how I'm supposed to use that metaphor. "Create directory": am I creating a new building? Is my building going to have two directories in the lobby? How is one 'inside' the other? I was completely lost on Unix until it was pointed out to me that "directory" was just its weird name for folder.