Fawlty Towers: Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil

I recently did myself the favor of watching Fawlty Towers for the first time, and boy, what a favor it was.

Like any self-respecting geek, I've been a fan of the Monty Python troop's work since I was in middle school (you did not want to mention "not expecting" something around me when I was in ninth grade or so, trust me). However, until recently, my fandom was pretty much restricted to the immediate Monty Python canon of the Flying Circus and its movie relations, so I didn't venture out into the wild world of the Pythons' solo ventures. Which meant I never watched Fawlty Towers, the British sitcom in which John Cleese (aka Sir Lancelot; aka the guy with the dead parrot; aka the Argument Clinic dude) is Basil Fawlty, the worst hotel manager ever. Which meant I was seriously missing out. And you are too if you haven't watched the series. 

But now I've watched the whole series (or two series, rather... British TV terminology is confusing) and enjoyed the heck out of it. There are many great things about Fawlty Towers, and I could give a really thorough review outlining a lot of them. But I won't do that. Instead, I want to call attention to one minor detail in the show that has some great payoffs throughout the show's run.

That detail is that Basil's wife's name is Sybil.

And here's why that's so great: Sybil is a name that is really, really easy to say quickly. Seriously, try it. Say it loud; say it proud: Sybil Sybil Sybil Sybil Sybil Sybil. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Now try doing the same thing with another name. Changes are, it didn't roll quite so well. Marge Marge Marge Marge. Becky Becky Becky Becky.

Sybil works like this, I think, for two reasons. The first is that Sybil is composed of very short syllables, especially that second one: "il" (/əl/, for all you phonetics nerds out there). It's very clipped and quick to say, which allows for very fast repetition. Compare the two syllables of "Sybil" to the one syllable of "Marge," for example. "Marge" may have fewer syllables, but it feels much longer to say. The sounds, especially that vowel, are long, and it's really difficult to say it quickly.

The second reason is another phonetic one, so forgive me for the technicality of it all (and for those of you with more expertise on this subject than I have, feel free to correct me!). Here it is, though: "Sybil" is a word that begins and ends at the same place of articulation. /s/ and /l/ are both alveolar consonants, meaning that your tongue forms the sound by touching the alveolar ridge in your mouth (i.e. that bumpy part of the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth). That means that once you say the name Sybil, you don't have to move any part of your mouth before saying it again. Again, compare that to Marge, in which you have to move your lips closed to form the bilabial articulation point of the /m/. With Sybil, you don't have to take that split-second pause to put all your articulation organs back into the right position, making rapid repetition of the name all the easier.

Mmmm... alveolar ridge...

Okay, yes, but why is it so important to be able to say Sybil's name over and over in rapid succession? Wouldn't Fawlty Towers be just as great if Sybil (played impeccably by Prunella Scales, by the way) had indeed been named Marge? Well, not quite. I mean, don't get me wrong; Fawlty Towers is very funny independent of the characters' names. But I'd argue that it would not be quite so funny if Sybil were named something else.

Here's why: almost every episode of the show involves John Cleese's Basil becoming increasingly flustered at some situation in the hotel, a flustering that usually requires him to interact with his wife. And when Basil gets flustered, he begins to speak very, very quickly—which is why it's super important for him to be able to repeat his wife's name very quickly. When I think of Fawlty Towers, there is perhaps no trope in the series more iconic to me than Basil's impassioned cries of "Sybil, Sybil, Sybil," sometimes in exasperation as he tries to talk her out of spoiling one of his intricately constructed lies, sometimes desperately as he tries to explain some mishap he has caused, but always in rapid succession, uttered so quickly and so often that the repetition veers into some sort of comically surreal sound effect. Really, next time you watch the show, listen to how Cleese says Sybil. The name comes fast and clipped, and Cleese always piles up multiple repetitions on top of one another. It's the show's own version of a rimshot, only instead of signaling a punchline of a joke it cues the beginning of one of Basil's futile attempts to restore his version of order to the hotel's chaos. And it sounds hilarious.

Without Sybil being named Sybil, John Cleese couldn't have pulled off that sound effect, and the show would have been just a bit poorer in the sound's absence.

And that's about all I have to say about that. Until next time!