last night's news, had a review of LOTR, and the review gave the pagentry and scope of the movie high praise, and said veiwers would enjoy it, even if the hobbits, elves, and other story elements were beyond their ken.. and then went on to say ken was a mediavel work... one of many that the movie used..
now, i won't claim the i use ken often, in fact, aside from the phrase beyond my ken, i don't think i use it at all.. i read --because it was popular in the late 1960/early 1970's, LOTR, (and had a button 'Frodo Lives!) too, i don't know if i picked the word up there or from other reading or movies.
i know it was used in the movie "Kestral for a Knave'-- a movie (circa 1973-4) set in northern yorkshire, that when released in US came with sub-titles (the 'english engling' deemed to hard for USer's to understand!)
and i it is used in 'historical fiction/biography' type books..(which i have read a number of) and i expect everyone here knows the phrase.. so my question is, is ken archaic? or current english? what do you think? or does it only have 'life' in the phrase?
OP
