The phrase “beyond the ken” means something that cannot be understood or explained. It comes from the Scots word “ken” meaning knowing, and may have originated in the US in the 19th century. It can be used to refer to things that cannot be known or to exaggerate a person’s inability to understand something.
“Beyond the ken” means something that cannot be explained or understood. The word ken is Scots for knowing, and goes back even further to the Anglo-Saxon term, cennan, which means to beget or conceive. While the Anglo-Saxon word is slightly different, there is a strong relationship between the two terms and speakers may use beyond ken to mean the overcoming of conception. According to some language enthusiasts, the origin of the expression is much later and the written use of the term is believed to have occurred for the first time in the 19th century.
Although ken and cennan derive from the language used in the British Isles, the first printed use of the term may have occurred in 1830, in a US newspaper called The Republican Banner. Other examples of the idiom can be found in 19th-century American writing. Some pundits don’t believe the British spelled the term until the mid-19th century, when the popular radio show Beyond our Ken aired.
This belief can be dismantled quite easily. First of all, it is probable that beyond the ken it was a phrase in common use by the Scots who immigrated to the United States, which traces the origin of the expression back to a much earlier time. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether the radio host in Britain, whose name was Kenneth Horne, would have titled his show after him with a pun, if he had not believed it would be understood. So, there’s a good chance this idiom was regularly said and written in England before the 1950s. Unfortunately, written or recorded uses of the expression have not been faithfully traced, making it difficult to attribute its origin to any specific person or writer.
It doesn’t matter where and when the phrase originated, there are two slightly different ways it can be used beyond the ken. One is like a simple statement of fact, referring to things that cannot be known. The following sentence provides an example: The precise number of planets in the universe is beyond the ken. If the universe is infinite, it’s simply impossible to know how many planets exist; infinity cannot be counted.
Alternatively, this idiom can be used exaggeratedly to state a person’s inability to understand something. An example of this could be the following: it is not clear why Beatrice marries that man. In reality, the speaker is saying that he has difficulty understanding Beatrice’s choice or is baffled by it. In theory, if he sat down with a pen and paper or a good psychology book, he could come up with many reasons why Beatrice chose this particular boyfriend, even if he disagrees with them. To say that in this case she is beyond comprehension is hyperbole to emphasize how strange the choice seems.
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