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Reader question: Please explain “signature move” in this passage (The bear hug TRUMPS the handshake: Indian PM Modi eschews US president's usual firm greeting with a full-on embrace, DailyMail.co.uk, June 27, 2017): US President Donald Trump should have been ready for a bear hug from Narendra Modi this week in Washington - the folksy embrace has become a signature move for the Indian prime minister in greeting global leaders and celebrities alike. My comments: The signature is your name written at the end of a letter or a document. The signature is your very own handwriting, different from anyone else’s. Therefore, seeing your signature, people understand that the letter is yours or that it is really you who’s signed the document, agreeing to a deal or some such. A move refers to one’s body movement when we do something. In our example, it refers to Narendra Modi’s particular way of hugging people as a form of greeting. Therefore, that the “folksy embrace has become a signature move for the Indian prime minister in greeting global leaders and celebrities alike” means that Modi does this so often that it’s become his particular style, something that distinguishes himself from others. Other people do the bear hugging, too, of course. But somehow Modi does it more impressively or memorably. Therefore, when you see the particular way he embraces people, you recognize instantly – and unmistakably – that it’s Modi. | 
