Equally as acceptable?

I was reading an article in The Atlantic when I ran across this sentence:

Are both spellings equally as acceptable?

I've seen this "equally as" construction before, and I've wondered if it was acceptable. To me

Are both spellings equally acceptable?

is a perfectly grammatical and complete sentence, and the version with "equally as" sounds wrong. How does it even make sense? If two things are not equally "as acceptable", does that mean that one is more "as acceptable" than the other?

Anyway, even if there's nothing wrong with "equally as", isn't the "as" redundant? Is there any difference in meaning between the two versions?

Solution 1:

In a strict sense, "equally as acceptable" should be short for "equally as acceptable as that other thing just mentioned or compared".

Citation needed I'm aware (but I might get around to expanding later, leaving this as a starting point for now) not any longer, read on

On the other hand, the M-W quote mentioned by @sykkor in the comments make the "equally" serve in a position to additionally stress the equality

One project is equally as important as the other.

although expressing that equality would be fully conveyed by the equalizing element in the comparison as ... as alone. So it's rather a tautology, tempting to say this may be leaving correctness to a matter of taste.

An that's exactly what the other quote, on BTB says, (formatting added)

Equally as is non-standard English because the preposition as is unnecessary after the adverb equally.

So here we have the answer to the issue with correctness -- saying equally as is semantically redundant and grammatically incorrect.

This is further supported by the fact that the page on the subject on M-W leads nowhere conclusive, much unlike any M-W page on established language fact. It just fades out, after giving no solid explanation or backing for anything, with the question

What made you want to look up equally as? Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).

That's revealing as it rounds up the impression that there's really nothing to state on that page (except online clickbait).

If you feel a need to add stress to an equal comparison in a standard colloquial way, you could say just as, but certainly not as equally as.