Ian still occasionally appearing in dock, curiously (8)
I believe the answer is:
quaintly
'curiously' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adverbs. Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'ian still occasionally appearing in dock' is the wordplay.
'occasionally' means one should take alternating letters.
'appearing in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'dock' becomes 'quay' (quay is a kind of dock).
'ian'+'still'='ianstill'
The alternate letters of 'ianstill' are 'intl'.
'intl' placed into 'quay' is 'QUAINTLY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for quaintly that I've seen before include "In twee manner" , "In a pleasantly odd way" , "In an attractively old-fashioned manner" .)