[Image credit: Stuart Miles]

Ouch.  That’s how it felt when I posted on a friend’s Facebook wall that funner is a word.  (Her mom is a teacher and I felt the sting of the imaginary ruler as she whacked me across the knuckles in admonishment.)  When Googling the derivatives of fun, I discovered its adjectives in slang form.  So are funner and funnest real words then?  According to The Grammar Girl, when fun is used as an informal adjective (rather than a common noun), funner and funnest slip down the same slippery slope.  (If crazier and craziest are okay, then why not funner and funnest, I ask?)  Apparently Steve Jobs touted the “funnest iPod ever” campaign, and now Chuck E Cheese commercials challenge its customers to: “say cheese, it’s funner.”  Personally, whether slang or not, I think these words are playful and, all rulers aside, funner*.

What do you think: are funner and funnest “real” words?

*If you refuse to use the informal approach, try more fun or most fun, instead.