Daud Deden <[email protected]> wrote:

On Wednesday, December 6, 2023 at 7:14:00 PM UTC-5, Antonio Marques wrote:

Here’s to Daud Deden, of all people. for keeping sci.lang alive!

Obrigado!
(Which I speculate is linked to obligate, where in old westerns, "thanks"
is rendered as 'much obliged'.)

Yep. right on. In fact, the same word exists as the past participle of _obrigar_, general meaning of which is ‘to force’, and legally ‘to bind [to
an obligation]’. In fact, female persons should use ‘obrigada’, the feminine form, but since nobody wants to feel ‘bound’ even when thankful, the tendency is for them to use ‘obrigado’ too, like an invariant word not psychologically related to the verb.
The ‘thank you’ word is also colloquially robbed of the o-, becoming just _brigado/a_, an apheresis that never occurs with the verbal form. It goes
as far as _muito obrigado_ ‘much obliged’ becoming _t’obrigado_, a phenomenon that seldom if ever affects other occurrences of _,muito_.

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