Publicly vs Publically

[Bagpuss]

So, I've read a few news feeds lately that seem to use the word "publically" for a word that I would spell as "publicly". I'm quite curious as to how many members of the forum would spell the word publicly as publically, or vice versa.

Is this an Americanism I'm not familiar with (I'm in the UK), is this some UKism I'm not aware of. Is this something else that's more international? I'm genuinely interested. Do you use the "ally" or the "ly" in your adverbs?

I've searched the forum and I can't find an earlier thread on the topic. If I'm re-hashing something that's already been discussed to death, then I'm happy to close it, but I just wondered what you all thought about the alternative spellings of the word ... publicly.

 

[Ursa major]

I don't want to worry you, but that's not the half of it. From Wiktionary:

Alternative forms

publically (fairly rare)​

publickly (obsolete)​

publictly (rare, Scotland, from code switching with Scots)​

publiquely (obsolete)​

 

[Swank]

Someone needs to use "publical" in a sentence.

 

[The Judge]

I confess I always type "publically" then have to change it -- it's non-standard (ie wrong -- my hardbook Oxford Dictionary of English doesn't deign to include it, though Collins online, which is a lot more lax on issues, mentions it as a variant) but to my mind it looks better whereas "publicly" looks ugly.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

I'll quickally and realisticly give some consideration to the question of where the ly and ally forms of the adverbial suffix look to be grammaticly and fabulousally correct