A quick thought on "backwards becket", which is the starting formation of one of my dances as well - i tend to think of it as "becket indecent" since that regularizes the term with other formation terms, implying lady on the gent's left. The basic list of course - proper, improper, indecent, improper-progressed, becket, becket-right (or CCW)... and then our friendly distant outlier, the backwards becket.
I'd theorize one reason Bill's dance "Weeks on the Road" folk-processed to start in normal becket is that "backwards becket" isn't a widely recognized formation. I run into the issue that - because becket-CCW dances are much less common than becket-CW (though more common now thanks to some great dances from Cary Ravitz and Heather Carmichael to name a couple) dancers zone out as soon as i say "circle one place to the..." [AUTOPILOT kicks in, dancers assume left]. Have found a variety of strategies to combat this, such as circling them to the left three places, or spelling R-i-g-h-t so there's no chance they, by some trick of perception, hear "left". Bringing these points up because a) i believe that formations, like certain moves, suffer from lack of use when general unfamiliarity on the dancers' part creates situations where dancers go on autopilot and b) while callers share common and frequently-used strategies for setting up / teaching / introducing the more standard moves and formations, there's a less uniform vocabulary and/or lack of shared strategies for the outliers... just a thought, from someone who likes anti-becket (oh, crap, there's ANOTHER way of saying becket-right) and reversed (or "mirrored") courtesy turns (see what i'm saying about vocabulary?) and such... which are in no wise more difficult than their normative counterparts, but confuse dancers who don't encounter them often.
