Mickie Grace, discussing Japanese words and phrases that are hard to translate:
カーキチ，鉄道マニアのような熱狂的な愛好者という意味であれば，fanaticが良いでしょう。Fanaticは元々形容詞ですが，名詞として使えば熱狂的愛好者という意味になります。
First of all, “カーキチ” itself is a taboo word. “カーキチ” is a concatenation of the word “car” and “kichigai (frantic in Japanese)” The word “kichigai” is a discriminatory language. You don’t hear the word in public anymore. If you don’t trust me, visit the full story in Wikipedia (written in Japanese). The word is way more strong and derogatory than English counterparts like crazy and insane. You may consider this kotobagari, but I feel the usage is entirely improper.
If you are discussing the pros and cons of such words that often come up as politically incorrect words, you should put a warning to users. For example, if your article starts with “This article may contain explicit, taboo languages, but the purpose of the usage is purely for discussion. I do not support any discrimination.”, then I’m perfectly fine.
For more nonsense, read her other articles.
I sincerely hope that readers of this website avoid taking such shoddy readings seriously. The saddest part of this story is that she doesn’t have readers point out the problem. The article was published on September 28, 2007.
(If you missed Part 1, you’re encouraged to read Part 1).