_The Word Premises._--The use of the word _premises_ for houses, lands,
and hereditaments, is surely incorrect. I have never found the word
_praemissa_ used in any Latin writer in a sense that can sanction the
modern application of its derivative. Johnson's authority supports the
view that the word is perverted in being made to stand for houses and
lands, as he says it is "in low language" that the noun substantive
"premises" is used in that sense, as, "I was upon the _premises_," &c.
The office of "the premises" in a deed, say the Law Dictionaries, is to
express the names of the grantor and grantee, and to specify the thing
granted. "The _premises_ is the former part of a deed, being all that
which precedeth the _habendum_ or limitation of the estate." I believe
the term "parcels" is applied, technically, to the specification of the
property which forms the subject of a deed. In an instrument, it may not
be wholly incorrect to refer by the term "premises" to the particulars
premised, and, if an etymological inaccuracy, it may be excused for the
sake of avoiding repetitions; but surely we ought not to speak of
houses, lands, &c. by this term. I see I am not the first to call an
editor's attention to this point, for, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of
Jan., 1795, a correspondent complains of this improper application of
the word, and attributes the perversion to the lawyers, "who," he says,
"for the sake of brevity (to which, by-the-bye, they are not much
attached), have accustomed themselves to the phrase, 'the aforesaid
_premises_,' whence the word has come to be universally taken as a
collective noun, signifying manors, tenements, and so on." The absurdity
of such a use of the word is illustrated by putting it for animals,
household goods, and personal estate, for which it may as well stand as
for lands and houses.