Give 'em an inch ...
It's getting dafter by the second ... I mean, honestly, what programmer anywhere has ever considered whitespace to be a blank or blanks? Last time I checked, a TAB wasn't a blank. Nor was a space. Nor was any other non-printing character.
Time to take the non-techies out of the loop when it comes to deciding what the lingua franca of the technical world is to be. It's our jargon, not theirs, and they can't have it! Best start speaking up now, before the hand-wringers take over and turn it all into grey goo ...