Utility post: about beat-offbeat scansion

Rather than try to write this in iambic pentameter, I'll just use ordinary prose. I like Attridge's beat-offbeat scansion mainly because it is easy to insert between lines when typing poetry. I will very briefly summarize it, and include my own suggestion for a typographical modification:

The following go below the line of poetry:

• Beats:
• B -- Emphasized beat (stress),
• b -- Unemphasized beat: normally unstressed syllable falling on a beat position in the meter,
• [B] -- Virtual beat, an "unspoken" beat that we tend to sense when say, three-beat lines alternate with four-beat lines (tetrameter alternating with trimeter, as in many ballad forms.)
• Offbeats (where the typography gets hairy):
• o -- Unemphasized offbeat, "standard" offbeat.
• O -- Emphasized offbeat, normally stressed syllable in offbeat position.
  
• -o- -- Double offbeat, common in iambic substitutions, dactylic and anapestic rhythms. If one or the other is a bit more stressed, use =o- or -o=.
• ~o~ -- Triple offbeat, rare in strict metrical English.
• ^o or * --Implied offbeat, rhythmical pause between stressed beats. I think of this as the "missing beat in the middle of a spondee" to relate it to more traditional scansion. I suggest the asterisk as easier to type and more compact.
• [o] -- Virtual offbeat, generally found at a caesura or grammatical pause, another "unspoken" one.

The o-caret combination is nasty to type, so that is why I propose the asterisk instead. For completeness, here are Attridge's "Rhythmic figures" with a comment or two. Following Meter and Meaning, # marks the beginning or end of line, // a signifcant break in the line:

1. o b o
   o b #
   # b o
   Examples of unemphasized syllables acting as beats, aka "promotion."
2. B O B
   # O B
   "Demotion", analogous to above.
3. # B -o- B
   // B -o- B
   "initial inversion" and "medial inversion", in traditional scansion a "trochaic substitution."
4. -o- B ^o B or -o- B * B
   "offbeat initial pairing" traditionally: "pyrrhic and spondee, double iamb, ionic minor."
5. B ^o B -o- or B * B -o-
   "beat-initial pairing" traditionally: "spondee and pyrrhic, ionic major."

And that's the system. I'll post an example or two next.