Personally, I never use the word "lightning" unless I know I'm dealing with someone who is already well versed with Bitcoin. Average people cannot be expected to parse technical jargon, which is what Lighting is.

Similar to how average people use the word "the internet" to refer to one very large, very technical, multi-layered monolith. We should be using the word "Bitcoin" and only that word.

Similar to my comment here about how we should approach L3's like Fedimint: #769472

Let's not confuse people. There's already too much noise and confusion in the "crypto" world, which is what they view Bitcoin as being a part of. They will think "Lightning" is a new cryptocurrency, and roll their eyes.