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  • Decisions come to us.
  • Decisions come at us.

Which is one is correct, and why?

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More context or background, please? Otherwise, you won't get many answers. You could vastly improve this question. Right now, it's not looking too good. Pointers: Is this something you've been agonizing over for a while? / Were you writing a speech when you ran into this problem? / Did a friend make a statement using at/to that you thought was wrong? Please make this more interesting. Downvoting for now, sorry. – Jimi Oke Aug 27 '11 at 20:33

closed as not a real question by tchrist, Matt Эллен, Hugo, StoneyB, MετάEd Oct 4 '12 at 14:14

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

It depends on the context.

For a decision to come to us means that the decision is now up to us; that it is now inside our jurisdiction (maybe responsibility) to handle.

For decisions to come at us emphasizes that they suddenly or in quick succession come upon us. At is a more forceful preposition, almost with a connotation of "in your face".

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Agreed, but would add a caveat about decisions coming at you...that would refer to a stream of decisions made by someone else, maybe as a backlog of questions you had put to them. It wouldn't normally refer to decisions you must make: In that case, it is the requests/questions/dilemmas that come at you. – JeffSahol Aug 27 '11 at 18:12
Aren't those decisions too? I think I'm misunderstanding. I'd like to edit my answer ut I'm not sure I know what you're getting at. – Daniel δ Aug 27 '11 at 18:15
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I may be over analyzing this @dr65, but I wanted to ensure (in the absence of context and based on the assumption he's non-native English speaker) that he's not referring to a series of decisions he must make. In that case, it makes more sense to me to refer to the questions or requests that require decisions as "coming at him". Does that make more sense? – JeffSahol Aug 27 '11 at 18:24

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