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Here's a situation:

We have a list of companies that we want to talk to. So we approached them. And some of these companies have gotten back to us.

This act of getting back to us:

  1. Are they approaching us? (would this be correct?)
  2. Are they getting back to us? (Obviously)
  3. Are they [fancy word] to us?

This [fancy word] is what I am looking for. And not something like respond. Any suggestions?

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What's wrong with respond? Responding is exactly what they are doing. You even use the word response in the question. What have you found and rejected in your searches in a thesaurus? – Andrew Leach Sep 25 '12 at 7:56
I agree with Andrew: What's wrong with respond? I could recommend some Chinese-English: "They are cooperating with us". "Cooperating" is a vague term that means "working with", "doing business with", or, in this case, "responding positively to our approach". I'd use "respond". Why be pretentious? That's all a fancy word would accomplish. – Bill Franke Sep 25 '12 at 9:19
Nothing wrong with respond. Was asking in case there is a better or different word. @BillFranke being pretentious -- corporate lingo :)! I don't understand the point of it, but we go out of our way to make up bullshit words for a simple sentence that says NO. – Eshwar Sep 25 '12 at 10:37
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Yes, making up bullshit words for saying NO is one thing, but trying to find a pretentious ("fancy word") term for "respond" is another. The point to the bullshit words for NO is to avoid being direct and negative: in some cultures, disagreement and refusal breed disharmony and conflict. I don't know about yours. Sometimes one wants to do that, but at other times, one wants to be as direct as possible. When I lived in Japan, I always said that because I was driving home, I couldn't drink with my colleagues. They eventually told me to "take the train next time". – Bill Franke Sep 25 '12 at 11:45
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@Eshwar On this site, we often analyze scatalogical words, such as bullshit. We generally try not to use those terms here as a tool in our communication with each other. – bib Sep 25 '12 at 12:28
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1 Answer

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Barring respond, all I can say is:

  1. Express interest
  2. Reply
  3. I have no idea what are they to us is supposed to mean.
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I meant with are they to us, as in what is the verb for their act of responding. Badly put :) – Eshwar Sep 25 '12 at 10:35

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