Best Practice for Multi-Lingual Support

[eluser]CodeIgniterNewbie[/eluser]
Which is better:

Code:

$lang['my_content'] = 'Content with <a href="http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/HTML-elements/inline.html">inline markup</a>';

OR

Code:

// the %s would have to be built outside of the language file; "inline markup" would still come from the language file, though
$lang['my_content'] = 'Content without %s';

A purist might argue that the language files should ONLY contain language items; no markup whatsoever. This adds a layer of difficulty when having to deal with inline markup (declaration of another language variable, having to construct the markup outside of the language file, etc.).

Perhaps there isn't a problem with mixing content and markup in the language files -- if it will simplify complexity of code.

Are there any suggested best practices for this issue?