“In reply to” is breaking my brain. Has it always been phrased like that on twitter? I feel like “replying to” or ”in response to” would be clear whereas I’m only able to make sense of “in reply to” if I infer the elision of an article. That said, even “in a reply to” would make more sense when introducing a quote or excerpt from the reply.
Unless I’m just experiencing semantic satiation because I’ve been repeating it to myself in confusion.
response and reply are synonyms in your example. does “in a response to” sound better?
“In a response to” also works, but it has the same quote connotation for me that “in a reply to” has. I think “in response” feels like an established term to me that has a separate meaning from “in” + “response,” so substituting “reply” for “response” doesn’t work for me.
Interestingly, although the Cambridge dictionary includes references to each (meaning “in reply to” is formally accepted English [funnily enough, I can understand the second usage there, for very formal written correspondence]), there’s only a full page for “in response to.”
