The suffix -ship has been studied in
some detail, but most of that detail
is irrelevant to all but the most
hardcore etymologist. The most
important thing, in terms of its
origin, is that it is unrelated to the
word ship meaning 'a vessel,
especially a large seagoing vessel'.
-ship is a suffix used to form nouns of state or condition, chiefly added
to nouns and especially personal
nouns. In Old English it was widely
used with adjectives and participles,
but only two of these survive
(hardship and worship, from an
adjective meaning 'worthy').
The uses can be divided into
ever-finer distinctions, but there are
some basic categories. It can denote
'quality; condition' (kinship;
friendship 'the condition of being a
relative/friend'). It can denote
'skill; act; power' (scholarship 'the
acts of a scholar'; horsemanship 'the
skill of a horseman'). It can denote
'number' (readership; listenership
'number of readers/listeners'). It can
denote 'profession; office; position'
(professorship 'the profession of a
professor'). It can denote rank or
title (ladyship; lordship).
The suffix was common in Old English,
and is ultimately a form of the
ancestor of the Modern English verb
shape, in the sense 'to create; form'.
Cognate suffixes are found in many
Germanic languages; a form
occasionally encountered is the German
Wissenschaft 'science', from Wissen
'knowledge' and -schaft '-ship'.
Best Answer
That kind of table comes from the Latin tabula meaning "a board or plank" which was used for writing down columns of numbers. It was also where one ate one's dinner (OE called it bord and appropriated the Latin table for that purpose, although the Romans used the term mensa for the food table). Handy, eh? You can read about it on Etymonline. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=table&searchmode=none