Thank you for X: ～をありがとうございます

Question

I've often heard this pattern, particularly in things like

メッセージ／メール　を　ありがとうございます。

Since ありがとうございます is an adjective, why is it acceptable to use を in this situation? That seems about as grammatically correct as saying something like 雪を寒いです.

Is there some kind of underlying grammatical-correctness to this, or is this just something that was misused and then became acceptable over time?

Answer 1

I think your example is simply omitting a word (a proper verb after を, that is).

メッセージ／メール　を　（くれて）　ありがとうございます。

Which would mean this is basically like saying:

メッセージ／メール　を　くれて　うれしいです。

...ありがとうございます being essentially equivalent to ありがとうです. Of course, normally you don't say メッセージ／メール　を　うれしいです。, omitting the verb, but I think ありがとう is just so common that it might have become an exception.

Answer 2

ありがとう is the shortened form of

ありがたくございます

or

ありがたく存じます

ありがとうございます actually consists of two words ありがとう and ございます. Perhaps you think it's an adjective because ありがたい is an adjective. However, ありがとう comes from ありがたく. It might be easier to understand in this form: ~を(ありがとう)存じます. As you can see the を is there because of the verb 存じます.