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Apparently there are so many ways to write {かっこいい}.

Hiragana/katakana only:

  * かっこいい 
  * カッコいい 
  * カッコイイ 

EDICT:

  * 格好いい 
  * かっこ好い 

Other possible variants:

  * 格好良い
  * かっこ良い 
  * カッコ良い 
  * 格好好い
  * 恰好いい (notice that a different initial kanji is used)
  * ...

In general, which is the most commonly used variant? Are there also specific
places where one variant is preferred over the others (including the common
one)?
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2011-06-07T15:50:38.837
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2011-12-25T23:27:04.737
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word-choice kanji spelling orthography
The many ways to write {かっこいい}
かっこいい is only the result on the one of my Japanese-English dictionary and has
most hit according on Google search results. So I would like to assume かっこいい
most commonly used one.

And there is now decent one char (unicode) variant for かっこいい, which is "△"

> "本田△" → 本田さんかっけい（三角形） → 本田さんカッコイイ
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2011-06-07T16:14:49.820
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Google fight! (I'm lazy.)

  * かっこいい 58,800,000 
  * カッコイイ 31,200,000 
  * カッコいい 26,900,000 
  * かっけえ 8,940,000 (bonus!)
  * 格好いい 5,860,000 
  * 格好良い 5,700,000 
  * カッコ良い 2,830,000 
  * かっこ良い 863,000 
  * 恰好いい 189,000 
  * 格好好い 7,530 
  * かっこ好い 4,090 

I think anything below a million here is pretty much not used.
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2011-06-07T16:17:31.287
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In my dictionary I only get these variants:

  * # 格好いい

This variant as a reading かっこいい and an alternate reading かっこういい (note the う);

  * # かっこ好い

The reading is かっこいい.
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2011-06-07T16:23:12.763
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かっこいい is the one to go for. The ones with katakana add emphasis and can be
used as you like. Edict often has strange results and isn't to be trusted
completely.

I think if I was going to use the 良い kanji, I'd probably go for 格好良い (which is
a little different, the 格好 being かっこう). I would have thought the meaning for
格好いい was more "nice appearance" than "cool".
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2011-06-07T16:25:54.403
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かっこいい and カッコいい seem to be more common in dialog, while 格好いい is more common in
prose. If you were quoting someone or writing an informal email, tweet, etc.,
you would probably use かっこいい or カッコいい. But if you were writing from a third-
person perspective, you would probably use 格好いい.
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2011-06-07T18:50:52.520
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In general, people will use the hiragana version かっこいい. If you talk with
friends and use 格好いい, they'll most likely be thrown off for a bit.

かわいい has a similar usage, with the reason being that just using hiragana makes
it feel "cuter" since children without kanji experience are more likely to use
it.

It's important to note that you might also find the net-slang version littered
about message boards and other popular sites かっけえええええ. Because it's slang, you
shouldn't use it around people you don't know though!
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2011-06-07T19:39:51.220
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Some native feelings about the different spellings:

  * かっこいい is neutral
  * カッコイイ, カッコいい or anything with katakana looks like written by someone pretending to be young
  * かっけえ is frequently heard from young people. When a high-school student writes this in school, it would be corrected to かっこいい
  * 恰好いい looks sixty years old-fashioned.
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2011-06-07T22:29:13.120
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So you have 2 ways to write it: かっこいい & かっこういい The only variants I encountered
in mangas until now were: カッコイイ and 格好いい (the latter is long, as you can also
see, when you write かっこう and presse enter, you'll get the kanji's, but not if
you write only かっこ)
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2011-06-10T08:52:10.073
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I believe the most popular form is か っ こ い い, at least among the most popular
search terms cited here. However, you can test other variations and update the
graph in Google Trends. Thanks for listening.

Google Trends
[https://trends.google.com.br/trends/explore?date=all&geo=JP&q=%E3%82%AB%E3%83%83%E3%82%B3%E3%81%84%E3%81%84,%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A3%E3%81%93%E3%81%84%E3%81%84,%E3%82%AB%E3%83%83%E3%82%B3%E3%82%A4%E3%82%A4&hl=pt-
BR&hl=pt-
BR&sni=5](https://trends.google.com.br/trends/explore?date=all&geo=JP&q=%E3%82%AB%E3%83%83%E3%82%B3%E3%81%84%E3%81%84,%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A3%E3%81%93%E3%81%84%E3%81%84,%E3%82%AB%E3%83%83%E3%82%B3%E3%82%A4%E3%82%A4&hl=pt-
BR&hl=pt-BR&sni=5)
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