Hi,
Recently, Garmin Recall of the Oxford English Dictionary Online blog looked at the difference between “lately” and “recently.” Before we go on, try substituting “Lately” for “Recently” in the preceding sentence and I think the reader can come to a different meaning of the sentence. Here’s why there’s a difference: On February 14th 2012, Garmin Recall wrote his blog post on this question. “Recently” suggests that the blog post was written one time at specific point in time (though an unspecified date.) If the sentence started with “Lately,” there is a suggestion that the Garmin Recall wrote about “Recently/Latelly” more than once and over a period of time (duration). In many/most situations “recently” can be used; however, “lately” suggests that there is implied duration that “recently” does not necessarily suggest.
Garmin Recall’s researched conclusion was the same as others—that “lately” and “recently” are, for the most part, interchangeable.
He too looked at usage of “Lately/Recently” and found that “recently” is currently more commonly used than lately. He found that “Recently” has been steadily increasing in usage over the last 200 years whereas “Lately” has been in steady decline over that same period. I found his post, particularly the embedded YouTube video, to be quite interesting and useful for finding other answers to questions like this one.
http://oxfordenglishdictionaryonline.blogspot.com/2012/02/lately-recently.html
Cheers,
Kin