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Is this sentence right?

My grandmother drinks tea as much as juice.

I’m mostly concerned with the correct usage of as much as.

Short answer: it's technically correct, but slightly ambiguous, and in this particular case, there's a more natural word order you can use.

But you asked specifically about "as much as", so...

X as ___ as Y

"as much as" is one of a class of comparatives in English. All of these sentences say that both of the clauses on either side of the "as __ as" are equal in terms of the comparison you're making. If you say "as much as", then you're comparing amount or magnitude; if you say "as fast as" then it's speed, and so on.

When comparing actions, the "much" can be any adverb that fits the verbs:

• She ran as gracefully as a gazelle (comparing grace)


• He jumped as high as John did (comparing height)


• They danced as much as they sang (comparing amount)


• I go there as often as Fred does (comparing frequency)

This also can be used to compare nouns, in which case you use an adjective between the "as" words:

• He was as handsome as a film star (comparing attractiveness)


• It was as sweet as honey (comparing sweetness)


• The bags were as heavy as rocks (comparing weight)


• The audience numbered as few as a hundred (comparing count)

The important thing here is that you're comparing the the complete clauses on each side, not just their object-nouns.

Even though it's often only a single word, the bit after "as" is a complete clause: usually it has had a lot of its words deleted from it in order to make the sentence less repetitive.

Deletion in comparatives

Your sentence is an example of word deletion in comparative sentences.

My grandmother drinks tea as much as juice.

The full, un-deleted, version of your sentence is:

• My grandmother drinks tea as much as my grandmother drinks juice.

Because that full sentence is repetitive, you are allowed to, and expected to, delete the repeated subject, verb or object from the second clause: so long as it doesn't make the meaning ambiguous. All of these are equivalent:

1. My grandmother drinks tea as much as my grandmother drinks juice.


2. My grandmother drinks tea as much as she drinks juice.


3. My grandmother drinks tea as much as juice.

So, your question was: is Number 3 right? The simple answer is "Yes. It is grammatically correct". The longer answer is "no, it's not good".

Over-deletion and ambiguity

The discomfort I feel with Number 3 is because it's now grammatically unclear whether "juice" is a subject or object. To see what I mean by it being unclear, look at another form of comparative, between two subjects:

4. My grandmother drinks tea as much as Terry drinks tea.


5. My grandmother drinks tea as much as Terry does.


6. My grandmother drinks tea as much as Terry.

Now, look at Number 3 and Number 6 again:

3. My grandmother drinks tea as much as juice.


4. My grandmother drinks tea as much as Terry.

Both of these are grammatically identical: "{subject-noun}{verb}{object-noun} as much as {noun}", and it's up to the reader to figure out whether that second noun refers to a subject or object. Common sense usually gives the right answer - obviously, in these examples, the reader can figure it out from context, but personally I try, wherever possible, to use enough grammar so that my reader doesn't need to guess what I mean. For this reason, I prefer to keep a verb in the right-hand clause unless it's categorically clear what's being compared.

Here's better example of ambiguous deletion:

• Sarah liked football as much as cricket


• Sarah liked football as much as Janet

In the first one, obviously, cricket can't "like", so it must be an object-noun: we now know that Sarah likes two sports equally. In the second, though, it's unclear whether Janet is a football fan too, or whether Sarah's affection is equally divided between football and Janet.

To resolve this, we put back the verbs that were over-zealously deleted, as appropriate:

• Sarah liked football as much as Janet did
  


• Sarah liked football as much as she liked Janet

Alternative word order when comparing magnitude or count

Finally, although you asked specifically about "as much as", there is actually a related, and more natural, comparative you can use in sentences like your example, and it is this:

• My grandmother drinks as much tea as juice.

Note how the first clause's object, "tea" has been shifted. This form is much more natural in both spoken and written English, and I'd prefer it to any of the "as much as" options above for this kind of sentence. Note also that this ordering is only acceptable when "much", "little", "many" or "few"* is used to compare the clauses.

(* I'm sure that's not the complete list, but the other allowable words are either rarely used, or I've temporarily forgotten them)

The correct way to say it is "My grandmother drinks tea as much as she drinks juice".