Beyond our Ken

I like interesting words and phrases.  So often we use them without knowing their origins.  Appropriately one such is "Beyond our ken", meaning, outside of our knowledge.

It is from middle English kennen meaning "to know", previously in Old English it was cennan.  But it must go back farther, to a time when shaggy folks on both sides of the North Sea spoke similar languages.  In German kennen also means to know.  

Like not a few oddities of the English language, the work was preserved up in Scotland in its original meaning.  But the specific phrase "beyond our ken" was not recorded until 1834 in of all places, Gettysburg Pennsylvania, and in of all contexts, an article describing an early balloon flight.

You'd think the name Kenneth would therefor indicate wisdom or knowledge.  And wrongly would you so think.  Although of Gaelic origins the name Kenneth derives from unrelated sources and means "handsome".  

So the most famous Ken of all seems aptly named.  Attractive, none too bright....