[OJFord]

I stand by 'ish' - B is plosive & M is not; that difference is if anything more apparent in Mandarin than English.

Then 'im' is read flat and not like 'ià'.

Of course 'bo' is quite like 'bāo', but that's your 'ish'.

[carrotcarrot]

Are you a native Chinese speaker?

I've noticed Chinese are very loose with their puns, and it helps that there is a lot of regional dialect variation in pronunciation.

For example a common one is 520 (wu er ling) being used for "wo ai ni" (I love you)

So I wouldn't put it past them to consider the two words as "similar"

[OJFord]

No, very far from it! That's interesting, thanks.