Breakdown of Meinetwegen können wir die Schwerkraft jetzt reduzieren.
jetzt
now
wir
we
können
can / to be able to
reduzieren
to reduce
Questions & Answers about Meinetwegen können wir die Schwerkraft jetzt reduzieren.
Doesn't meinetwegen usually mean "because of me"? Why is it translated as "for all I care" here?
Yes, literally it means "because of me" or "for my sake" (e.g., Er tat es meinetwegen - He did it for my sake). However, in spoken German, using meinetwegen as a standalone statement or at the start of a sentence is a very common idiom meaning "for all I care," "I don't mind," or "fine by me." It signals that you have no objections to the current proposal.
Where does the -et- in meinetwegen come from? Why isn't it just "meinwegen"?
This goes back to an older form of German where the genitive pronoun for "my" was meiner. When these genitive pronouns were combined with the preposition wegen, the -r sound historically shifted to a -t-, creating meinetwegen. You will see this exact same pattern in deinetwegen (because of you), seinetwegen (because of him), and ihretwegen (because of her/them).
Why does the verb können come immediately after meinetwegen?
Even though meinetwegen is acting as an idiomatic phrase here, it still functions grammatically as a single adverbial block taking up Position 1 in the sentence. Because German strictly requires the conjugated verb to be in Position 2, können must directly follow it, which then pushes the subject wir into Position 3.
Is die Schwerkraft the only word for "gravity"?