I just turned to the two most relevant books that I had on my shelf. Neither Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, nor SedgewiCk's Algorithms in C refer to a list without a qualifier. Knuth speaks of Linear Lists, and then goes into a description of Linked lists, doubly linked list and circular linked lists, and Sedgewick refers exclusively to Linked lists.
If I went to an interview for a Java role, and was asked to choose between a list and an array I would assume they meant java.util.List, if it was a Scala role I'd assume scala.collection.immutable.List; I think it's entirely reasonable for a Ruby+Python dev to be confused about what set of terms the interviewer is drawing from.
If you want to ask a generic CS question, then preface it appropriately, and be precise about your terminology.
It was a computer science question, not a programming question. If a particular tool doesn't implement one of the fundamental data types that is an interesting point you can talk about.
But the question sounds like the interviewer wanted to make sure you understood the time-complexity difference between the two.
If you've never done that style of interview it is important to realize that the goal is quite different to making sure you understand a language's syntax.