Punctuation

I have a question on punctuation (actually element nesting order) based on a recent post by Jonathan Delacour. (I re-discovered his weblog through Mark Pilgrim’s cool New Door tool.) It’s along the lines of Fowler’s question of the right order as between quotation marks and stops which is why the term punctuation came to mind.

Jonathan quotes Joe Clark’s explanation of the correct use of the <cite></cite> element: it’s meant to mark up titles and words and phrases, as I’ve done above with the word punctuation and the title New Door. (Until now I’ve been in the habit of using <q></q> for titles, or sometimes just <a></a> if they’re links, but I’m now a believer in the One True Citing Style.) Looking at his source, though, I see he puts the <cite></cite> element around his <a></a> element: <cite><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/073571150X/">Building Accessible Websites</a></cite>. Perhaps I’m in a pedantic mood from reading Ian Hickson’s Markup Challenge posts, or maybe I’m just proving that none are so fervent as the recent convert (I wish wish wish I could remember where I read that line not two days ago—note to self: blog early and often), but I think <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/073571150X/"><cite>Building Accessible Websites</cite></a> is more correct—it’s the title that is being cited, not the link to the title.

On a related note, should citations such as Fowler’s above be <cite>Fowler's</cite> or <cite>Fowler</cite>'s? I use the former; I suspect the latter is correct, but what will a layout engine do?

(Congratulations, Jonathan, you’re the random target of the day. Feel free to disparage my weblog as necessary—there’s lots to pick on here, not least my obsession with the trivial and mundane.)