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Originally Posted by MMM
But, as I said, the Japanese are very familiar with the English alphabet, and are not intimidated by its use.
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Unfortunately, as familiar as people are with the English (Roman) alphabet... It doesn`t mean that they`re *skilled* with it`s use. Reading something written in romaji falls somewhere along the lines of trying to read a regular English sentence written all in Katakana. Sure, you can probably do it, but it will take you a bit of time and thought.
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Which leads me to a question. Abbreviations, like "KY" (short for 空気を読めない, Kuuki wo Yomeni, or someone who has difficulty reading a situation). Is "KY" romaji? English?
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It`s an abbreviation - "kuuki ga yomenai" (ga seems to be a lot more common than wo) would be romaji. KY is an abbreviation that is read as 空気が読めない. Just as PC is read as パソコン (which I`d consider a Japanese word at this point), and wouldn`t be considered romaji. In the end, the abbreviation ends up being treated as a character itself, of sorts, and loses connection with where it came from.
Your example was pretty timely too. Last night, they had a show on asking people to read KY and some others, and while almost everyone could read it (sometimes not the exact phrase, but the same meaning), less than a third knew that it was an abbreviation taken from kuuki ga yomenai.