We have all heard the word ceiling, you know the part of the house that’s above you. If you were to point to the wall of a house and call it a ceiling you might get looked at kind of funny. But, if you point to what you land lovers would call a wall on a boat and call it a calling you would be a whizz with the nautical terms. There are no walls on boats. The ceiling of a boat is the inner siding of the boat, and is where the word originated.
As the story goes there was a time when the ceiling did not exist. Back in the day boats were built by creating a frame and then planking the outside of the frame. If sealed correctly this was good enough for the boat to float and thought to be good enough to carry cargo. For the first large cargo ships this was as far as the construction went. Food and people found themselves stuffed to the gills on boats making treks from one port to another. These boats packed with goods, especially those that expanded as the temperature or humidity increased started to have problems. The increased weight and stress would push directly on the planks of the ship and the planks would warp and begin to separate from one another. This would create gaps and bring in water, thus ruining both cargo and ship. To solve the problem boat builders constructed a second frame inside the first, completing it with slatted boards to create an inner chamber to contain the cargo and take the pressure off the planks that were intended only to take pressure from the water. These boards were and still are called ceilings and the thus the term was born. This new finishing technique also stored dry goods better and created a more ascetically pleasing smooth finish.
This new interior of boats was noticed by carpenters and wealthy owners of houses as a great way to seal roofs from the inside to hide the less visually striking frame. They would use the same slotted wood technique to create a ceiling of wood across the top. Thus the term Ceiling was born and the part of the house you probably spend the least amount of time looking at our thinking about turns out to have quite a history behind it!
Sailing One World 