In an October 22, 2013 thread titled “We will wank about this forever,” a nonny facetiously asked, “But what are your thoughts on pronouncing yaoi?”
This touched off serious wank over whether to say “yow-ie” or “ya-oh-ee.” The argument basically boiled down to:
“The classic Ugly Tourist attitude of, “you local people with your stupid language, why should I bother pronouncing things properly? I buy your fucking manga, but I'm going to mis-pronounce your words and you should be grateful you get that much.”
Versus:
”Except this really sounds like you're projecting, because a) 99% of people who pronounce the word this way probably don't actually say it very often, if at all; b) if they do say it, it's most likely when they're speaking English; and c) if/when they do say it, the odds are that there aren't going to be any Japanese people around to hear it. (And if there are, then a bigger question arises, which is why an English speaker is using the weeaboo word for m/m comics instead of the actual genre people that Japanese people would recognize.) The fact is that people who pull out the full Japanese accent when dropping loanwords into American conversation typically come across as very, very try-hard. Do you also get up in arms with people pronouncing karaoke the English way?“