Oh, publicly is valid spelling. It's just not right.

Besides, some random guy on the internet agrees with me:

‘Publicly’ is surpassed only by ‘subtlety’ as English's most abominable word. But whilst we're lumbered with the latter, for the former we have a fine and upstanding alternative in ‘publically’. Or we would do if the word wasn't so unfittingly maligned—a fate we can, thankfully, spare it with just a brief look at the history of the word and the logic behind its use.

In 1567 the adverb ‘publikely’ first made its appearance. It stayed that way for about a century until ‘publiquely’ and ‘publickly’ arose in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The form ‘publicly’ didn't make its appearance until 1855, nearly three hundred years after the first form. Sixty-five years later, we shifted once again to ‘publically’. It was Edith Sitwell who gifted it to us.

But in so-called edited English, ‘publicly’ remains standard. Why? Because of the usual pernicious mixture of prescriptivism and ignorance. Spelling became fixed in English when ‘publicly’ was at the zenith in its vogue, and the simple combination of adjective + "-ly" suffix seems eminently logical. But neither spellings nor meanings are ever entirely fixed in language, and moreover ‘publicly’ isn't as logically consistent as it may first appear.

The OED, after stating that "-al" is often used to form secondary adjectives, notes a cornucopia of adverbs that no longer have their "-al" counterparts. The adverb, it says, "is almost always in -ically even when only the adj. in -ic is in current use, as in athletically, hypnotically, phlegmatically, rustically, scenically." And you can add to that asyndeton my own canonical retort of ‘basically’, as in "publicly is basicly an abomination". Please, let publically be.

Continues here: [link]

Hmm. Though another google search counters my "publical isn't a word" argument with "basically." [link]

edit: hee. x-post

I agree with everything he said except for his slam on subtlety. I like that word.

I do too, Deena. I do always have to stop and think about the spelling, though.

Dude, I've only ever spelled it "publically," because "publicly" looked freakish.

But then, you know my editing skillz are shoddy....

I've never seen the word "publically" before. Honestly.

For people who like both Science and Chocolate - a big post on chocolate in Cocktail Party Physics: [link]

Apparently there's been lots o' scientific research on cocoa in the last ten years....

There's quite a few chemical components to cocoa. First, there's the so-called methylxanthines: caffeine and theobromine. Then there's biogenic amines like tyramine and tryptamine, as well as the by-now-well-known cocoa flavanols (which I always confuse with flavonoids; flavanols are a subclass of flavonoids, but that's as far as my understanding goes), most notably epicatechin. There's also dopamine-related compounds like salsolinol, and certain endocannabinoids like anandamide. All of these are being studied in one way or another for their potential effects on human health, whether it be measurable, direct psychophysiological effects, or acquired behavioral and psychological effects (which tend to be a bit more subjective).

Fun.

eta:

To sum up:

* The "reward" effect from eating chocolate is largely psychological, because it require consuming huge amounts of the stuff in a single sitting to have a significant chemical effect.

* Ditto for the possibility of chocolate being chemically addictive; the chocoholic phenomenon appears to be largely behavioral/psychological in nature.

* Like any food or beverage containing caffeine (and in the case of cocoa, theobromine as well), chocolate does temporarily increase cognitive or psycho-motor performance.

* The jury is still out, however, on whether consuming a flavanol-rich cocoa drink improves learning, memory or one's ability to perform complex cognitive tasks.

* The single best reason for consuming a flavanol-rich cocoa drink like Cocoapro, despite the bitterness, is that it can have a significant positive effect on cardiovascular health, reducing one's risk of high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes -- particularly for aging individuals.

athletically, hypnotically, phlegmatically, rustically, scenically.

These all look wrong to me. And I'm looking askance at "basically" right now. Not that "basicly" looks right, either. One of those words I just avoid using because it never looks correct, I think.

I got myself all befuddled just yesterday trying to work out how I could know if "Wednesday" was spelled right and how I couldn't name any hypothetical daughters that because I would never be sure I had it right.

I'm going public. That is, I'm posting my question in a public poll, in LJ. Since it's been posted publically, you can vote (and comment) even if you don't have an LJ. [link]

Huh. I have no problem with "problematic" and "problematically".

So much for logic.

(edited because typos are particularly confusing in a discussion about spelling)