I think it’s usable for both the signing of a contract as well as the combined act of drafting and signing. Usually the sense of “creating” a legal document without signing it is referred to as “drafting” or “drawing up” the contract; I don’t think I’ve ever heard “inking” used in that sense.
You write it in ink, yes; but you also sign it in ink. That’s the more definitive and final action, and represents when a thing actually occurs.
For instance, a football player can “ink” a contract to play for a team; this is almost certainly meant in the “signed” sense, as the team almost certainly wrote it. And two companies can “ink” a contract to work together or merge or whatever, and almost certainly that contract was both written and signed by those companies’ representatives. But a lawyer who wrote a contract (like a will) which someone else signed wouldn’t have “inked” it, but rather “drawn it up.”
skavau is a clown
I think it’s usable for both the signing of a contract as well as the combined act of drafting and signing. Usually the sense of “creating” a legal document without signing it is referred to as “drafting” or “drawing up” the contract; I don’t think I’ve ever heard “inking” used in that sense.
You write it in ink, yes; but you also sign it in ink. That’s the more definitive and final action, and represents when a thing actually occurs.
For instance, a football player can “ink” a contract to play for a team; this is almost certainly meant in the “signed” sense, as the team almost certainly wrote it. And two companies can “ink” a contract to work together or merge or whatever, and almost certainly that contract was both written and signed by those companies’ representatives. But a lawyer who wrote a contract (like a will) which someone else signed wouldn’t have “inked” it, but rather “drawn it up.”
It can, but it can also be used as a colloquialism for ANY way of entering a contract, even digitally (with your fingers 😉)
“fingering the contract”