[tei-council] <date>, <distance>, and <measure>

[Syd Bauman]

> HOWEVER, before we get all excited about using this wonderful
> facility, I'd like to record my profound skepticism about the
> wisdom of allowing @dur as an attribute on <measure> at all.

I am also uneasy with putting a dur= on <measure>. But
simultaneously, I'm uneasy about expressing a span of time using dur=
if it is a <time> or <date> (or a speech transcription thingy), but
with <measure unit="time"> if it is only a part of a <time> or
<date>.

  I was online for only <time dur="PT04M">four minutes</time>.

  I was able to get online <time>
    <measurement commodity="time" unit="min" quantity="4">four minutes</time>
    <offset>before</offset>
    <time>midnight</time>
  </time>

Perhaps <measurement> isn't the right alternative to P4's <distance>,
but rather a(nother) nested <time> or <date>? In which case, if you
really want to structure your relative times, you would use

  I was able to get online <time>
    <time dur="PT4M">four minutes</time>
    <offset>before</offset>
    <time>midnight</time>
  </time>

and the rest of us would just use

  <time>four minutes before midnight</time>