Under th epremises

Question

Would you be so kind as to tell me what the phrase "under the premises of the manufacturer" means in:
"We herewith declare that the abovementioned products met the provisions of the Council Directive 93/42/EEC for medical devices. All supporting documentation is retained under the premises of the manufacturer"?

I've tried to look that up in a few distionaries, but unfortunately, none records the "under the premises" phrase.
Thank you very much.
Kamil

Usenet · Accepted Answer

The online dictionary at www.m-w.com gives one of the definitions of "premise" as:
2 plural : matters previously stated; specifically :the preliminary and explanatory part of a deed or
of a bill in equity.
Perhaps that definition is the one you are seeking?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Would you be so kind as to tell me what the phrase "under the premises of the manufacturer" means in: ... manufacturer"? I've tried to look that up in a few distionaries, but unfortunately, none records the "under the premises" phrase.[/nq]
Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: a : a tract of land with the buildings thereon b : a building or part of a building usually with its appurtenances (as grounds)
The statement simply means that the company has the documentation that proves the product meets the specifications, and that the company is keeping those documents in their files in their office.

I wouldn't expect the phrasing to be "under the premises". I would expect "at the premises" or "in the premises". I suppose they are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.

However, statements like the above are not intended to provide usable information. They are intended to provide compliance with some rule. There's probably a statement in the Council Directive 93/42/EEC that requires the maker of a product to retain documentation under the premises, and the above statement is just saying "We do that." The writers of the above statement are not in the business of clarifying the Council's style of writing.
Additionally, there is probably an unrelated directive somewhere that uses the phrase "under the premises", and the Council person that wrote 93/42/EEC just picked up the wording because it looked properly official.

Usenet · Answer

KS wrote on 25 Jan 2005:
[nq:1]Would you be so kind as to tell me what the phrase "under the premises of the manufacturer" means in: ... manufacturer"? I've tried to look that up in a few distionaries, but unfortunately, none records the "under the premises" phrase.[/nq]
Maybe it's a mistake and should be "on the premises of the manufacturer", which means that all the supporting documentation is kept by the manufacturer in one of the manufacturer's buildings or offices etc.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

Usenet · Answer

Uzytkownik "Tony Cooper" napisal w wiadomosci
[nq:1]Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: a : a tract of land with the buildings thereon ... proves the product meets the specifications, and that the company is keeping those documents in their files in their office.[/nq]
That was my guess, but I needed to be sure. I'm quite detached from 'living' English here in Poland you know, so I thought that was some linguistic development ;-)
[nq:1]I wouldn't expect the phrasing to be "under the premises". I would expect "at the premises" or "in the premises". I suppose they are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.[/nq]
Thank *** a native speaker of English says the phrase is awkward! :-)
[nq:1]However, statements like the above are not intended to provide usable information. They are intended to provide compliance with some ... "under the premises", and the Council person that wrote 93/42/EEC just picked up the wording because it looked properly official.[/nq]
I should have guessed that was Eurospeak ;-) Thank you very much for your explanation!
Kamil

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Would you be so kind as to tell me what ... distionaries, but unfortunately, none records the "under the premises" phrase.[/nq]
[nq:1]Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: a : a tract of land with the buildings thereon ... "at the premises" or "in the premises". I suppose they are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.[/nq]
I went through the same reasoning myself, but since there are a thousand Google hits for "under the premises of" and the ones I look at have nothing whatever to do with location, this appears to be a false trail.

Some examples:
including peacekeeping missions conducted under the premises of the UN's Agenda for Peace,
This also comes under the premises of emphasizing strategy over action.
He was initially questioned under the premises of the USA Patriot Act,
Monitoring and evaluation plans designed under the premises of the EDT method define the prominent uncertainties or causal relationships that require further ...
Operating under the premises of the triple bottom line can assist management in meeting these challenges.
Yes, I know that none of these closely match "under the premises of the manufacturer." I don't we think we have a proper answer yet. (If it truly was location, I don't think it would have been "under," either; therefore I conclude it was not likely to be location.)

Best - Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: ... are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.[/nq]
[nq:1]I went through the same reasoning myself, but since there are a thousand Google hits for "under the premises of" ... location, I don't think it would have been "under," either; therefore I conclude it was not likely to be location.)[/nq]
Those, might just be a mixture of miswriting "premises" for "premise" or erroneously substituting "premises" for "provisions". That does not apply to the OP's passage, which does seem to apply to a location.

My 2 cents.

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: ... are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.[/nq]
[nq:1]I went through the same reasoning myself, but since there are a thousand Google hits for "under the premises of" ... location, I don't think it would have been "under," either; therefore I conclude it was not likely to be location.)[/nq]
Since reference is made to documents being retained, I do conclude that the location of where they are being retained is what is meant.

Since this is likely to be boilerplate copy, and put into this document by someone that was picking up boilerplate and not someone attempting to actually describe what was being done, I'm comfortable with this being something picked up from a previous slight error in wording and carried forward to other documents.
With the exception of the "in", "on" or "under" discrepancy, the statement makes complete sense even if slightly stiff. I can see some clerk laboring over "in the offices of" or "on the premises of" and thinking he was covering all the bases by going with "premises" since the documents might be kept in a warehouse separate from the offices. He'd concentrate so much on that - and probably hold six meetings to discuss the term - that the "under" would slip by.

I'll go with location.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: ... are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.[/nq]
[nq:1]I went through the same reasoning myself, but since there are a thousand Google hits for "under the premises of" ... location, I don't think it would have been "under," either; therefore I conclude it was not likely to be location.)[/nq]
I wonder if you would still think that if you thought about it some more. To me the quoted statement clearly refers to location. I assume someone was thinking of the common phrase "on the premises" and misworded it because of confusion with phrases like "under the jurisdiction" or "under the control".
Either that or the documents are buried or are in an underground vault beneath the manufacturer's premises.

The applicable definition in the Oxford English Dictionary is
5. pl. (from 4.) A house or building with its groundsor other appurtenances.
All of the quotations it gives for that definition either have no governing* preposition or the governing preposition is "on". For example:
1902 Act 2 Edw. VII, c. 28 §21 Nor shall anycoroner's inquest be held on such licensed
premises. Mod. Licensed to retail beer, wine, spirits, and tobacco to be consumed on the premises. All
repairs done on the premises.
I've often heard or seen "on the premises". I don't recall ever encountering "at" or "in" governing "the premises".

But Google gives "about 177,000" hits for "at the premises and "about 255,000" for "in the premises". I guess I don't get out much. However, Google does give "about 1,150,000" hits for "on the premises".
Back to "under the premises": Google gives some hits that clearly refer to location when you search on "under the premises of the". But the ones I looked at have a subsurface connotation. For example,
A young woman is found savagely killed; there's
evidence of some contact between the suspect
close in point of time to her death, there's evidence of some of her clothing and a ring found under the premises of the suspect but nothing more.
That seems to imply that the articles were hidden under the house or, less likely, were buried in the yard.
Constructed under the premises of the Butterley
Company is a 3 mile long canal tunnel for the
Cromford Canal(?). The central section of the canal is currently disused, but a charitable fund has been formed to reopen the canal.
For what it's worth, Google finds a few hundred places where a distinction is made by using the phrase "on or under the premises". A particularly intriguing one has "in, on or under the premises":
Substances which were in, on, or under the premises by reasons of Lessor's activities on the premises or for any reason other than those which are the
responsibility of Lessee under Article 16.3 below, including, but not limited to, response, clean-up, and removal.
So what's the difference in connotation between "in the premises" and "on the premises"? It's lawyer speak, but I would guess "in the premises" might refer to inside buildings while "on the premises" might refer to outside on the ground.

* About "governing": I wasn't sure if it was right to say that prepositions govern their objects, but that use is covered by a definition in Webster's New World Dictionary :
6 Gram. a) to require (a word) to be in a certaincase or mood b) to require (a particular case or
mood): used as of prepositions with noun cases,
esp. in highly inflected languages, and, in English, more loosely, of any interrelationship between
forms In English grammar, the term may apply to
any interrelationship between forms, as to that
between a preposition and a following pronoun

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Just look up "premise" and you'll work it out: ... are using the "under the roof" sense, but it's awkward.[/nq]
[nq:1]I went through the same reasoning myself, but since there are a thousand Google hits for "under the premises of" ... location, I don't think it would have been "under," either; therefore I conclude it was not likely to be location.)[/nq]
In legal usage, "premises" frequently has the meaning of "something (or "all") that comes before" or "facts alleged (or "established")". It is commonplace, at least in the US, to end a complaint (the pleading that initiates a civil lawsuit) with a prayer for "all (additional) relief available in the premises," meaning "every form of relief available if I can establish what I have alleged."What I think is going on here is a confusion similar to that between "in the circumstances" and "under the circumstances." The second, though idiomatic English, is false to etymology, given that "circumstances" literally surround. Lawyers also use phrases like "under the contract" and "under the statute," meaning something like "in accordance with the provisions of ..." whatever the document says. It's easy enough to imagine a lawyer or two getting tangled up in his (or her) own fancy terminology and uttering an "under the premises" where "in the premises," even if unfamiliar to the layman, would at least suit the situation.

I share Donna's suspicion that real estate had nothing to do with the example we were asked about, and I think what I've just stated is an approximation of how the phrase evolved. Having evolved within at least shouting distance of logical meaning, it's now slipped its bounds altogether. But that's hardly unexpected in the case of what Fowler calls "popularized technicalities." Particularly if the phrase has developed within the EEC, I can see how it's drifted as far as it has.

My guess is that the sentence was intended to say that the text of the supporting documentation was to be controlled by the manufacturer, i.e., that only the manufacturer could make changes to it.
Damned clumsy English, though.

Liebs

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The online dictionary at www.m-w.com gives one of the definitions of "premise" as: 2 plural : matters previously stated; specifically : the preliminary and explanatory part of a deed or of a bill in equity. Perhaps that definition is the one you are seeking?[/nq]
And some try to make the distinction clearer by spelling it "premisses" in that sense, which seems to me to be useful, as it aids clarity.

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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