The phrase "awkward response" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a reply that feels uncomfortable or clumsy in a conversation or situation.
Example: "When asked about his feelings on the matter, he gave an awkward response that left everyone in the room silent."
Alternatives: "clumsy reply" or "uncomfortable answer".
Then came the slow and awkward response.
Two days later, Coats publicly apologized for what he called an "admittedly awkward response" to the news of the Putin invitation.
It was a curious answer; maybe an awkward response to a question asking him to look back, but it was worth pursuing.
Mr. de Blasio hit back, and hard, a contrast to his awkward response to the topic on Monday, when he sidestepped several questions and led a pack of reporters on a three-block chase in Midtown Manhattan.
But an awkward response last week in Iowa, in which Mr. Romney said in part that "one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected," forced him several days later to say he misspoke and injected a discordant note into his otherwise triumphant few days after he won the state's Republican straw poll.
A story in the New York Herald described Berenson's awkward response: Mr. Berenson replied that he objected to the term "employ of Sir Joseph Duveen," as he was not by any means regularly employed by the Duveens, but only expertised Italian paintings from time to time at their request.
He made broadly awkward responses with toothy embarrassed smiles.
Both Johansson and Swinton had to field questions from the press about whitewashing and were often forced into awkward responses.
While they struggle to understand their painful and awkward responses to lovers and children, she spins the raw material of motherhood and marriage into witty and topical dispatches.
Mr. O'Malley's comments on CBS's "Face the Nation" were followed by awkward responses from David Axelrod and David Plouffe, two of the top strategists for Mr. Obama's campaign.
As a result, "easy" messages got processed within seconds, and more difficult or awkward responses got delayed indefinitely — becoming even more awkward as a result, when I finally responded weeks or months later, looking rude in the process.
