Consider the following:
The financial industry got its (22) ________ (office) start on Wall Street on May 17, 1792. On that day, New York's first stock exchange was established by the (23) ________ (sign) of the Buttonwood Agreement.'
www.livescience.com (Link)
(from the Hungarian School Leaving Exam (MATURA), May 2017)
The task was to write the correct word formed from the word in the parentheses. The instructions were as follows
You are going to read an article about the origins of the name of Wall Street. Some words are missing from the text.
- Use the words in brackets to form the words that fit in the gaps (18-25).
- Then write the appropriate form of these words on the dotted lines after the text.
- There might be cases when you do not have to change the word in brackets.
- Use only one word for each gap.
Naturally, we have two options for (23). Either it's signature or it's signing.
Which one is correct? Are both correct?
According to the online Oxford Dictionary, signature can be used as a mass noun, with the meaning of 'the action of signing a document.'
Best Answer
Either word is correct here, but 'signing' would be the more commonly used word.
Signature is more commonly used to refer to the product of signing one's name than the act of signing itself. It is defined by Wiktionary as
The Cambridge Dictionary definition for Signature meaning the
notes it as formal. It would still be correct to use it in this instance, but it is a less common usage.
To provide some evidence of this usage of signature being less common than signing, I did some Google searches.
A Google search for "signature of the Magna Carta" provides about 15,500 results while "signing of the Magna Carta" provides about 99,200. Below is a table with results for the same Google searches with some other historical documents.
As you can see, signing is much more common than signature in this usage.