Depends who "people" were. Somebody who knows nothing is going to hear "Debian", somebody with a little more tech in their blood will hear "Debian... Yeah, that's right, Linux" and I'll save the "Debian GNU/Linux" for people trying to make a point about nomenclature.

My point wasn't that it's super important you call these things by the right name, it's that you were and you were getting it wrong still.

The pedantically correct term is "Debian GNU+Linux", I believe.

Debian GNU/Linux