Removing Public from URL but allow 'Publications' - php

Question

I know this question has been asked a million times, but bear with me here. I use an .htaccess file at the base directory of my local server with:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /public/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
This works great, but only one problem. If I put anything with 'public' in the first URL parameter, it gives me a 404.
So if I have www.test.dev/publications, it 404's me because it has 'public' in the name. I've tested thoroughly to make sure it was an HTACCESS issue and it definitely is. If I name the route www.test.dev/publi, it works fine, same with www.test.dev/publi-cations.
Does anyone have any ideas here to allow publications inside the URL with an .htaccess file?
Thanks!
EDIT: Just thought I should let you know that yes this isn't the right way to go about removing public from the URL, but my company refuses to change host and I don't have access to modify the site root.
/public/.htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect Trailing Slashes...
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Answer 1

To remove the /public/ part of your urls, you don't have to add /public/ to your .htaccess, you need to point your VirtualHost DocumentRoot directly to that folder, this is an example:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName yourdomain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/yourdomain.com/public
<Directory /var/www/yourdomain.com>
Options Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride AuthConfig FileInfo
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
And then just have something like this in your .htaccess:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect Trailing Slashes...
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Answer 2

Try this in .htaccess, it works with http://blog.dev/publications from my localhost
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
# Redirect Trailing Slashes...
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Answer 3

Try this rule:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^((?!public/).*)$ /public/$1 [L,NC]
UPDATE: Suggested /public/.htaccess:
Options -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /public/
# Redirect Trailing Slashes...
#RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule . index.php [L]