Initialisms being called acronyms

This post is mostly just venting; also curious what others think about this matter.

I work with legal content as a proofreader and whenever I come across initialisms being referred to as "acronyms," the higher ups at my company insist on leaving the incorrect reference as is. We can fix things like that, but even the editors at my company don't know what an acronym is.

I don't know why so few people understand the difference between acronym, initialism, and abbreviation, but as a proofreader, it's annoying that such a blatant error can't be fixed.

I guess this is like so many aspects of language that have been loosened to accommodate a common misconceptions/lack of knowledge over the years.

Too many proofreader tears have been spilled over this issue.