This is a bit late to be back to this but I thought of it while playing with something else. I really like the jQuery chaining and the vertical-style notation makes it quite easy to read. stopPropagation() is normalized in jQuery and should work on any modern browser.
<script type="text/javascript"
src="/your/path/to/jquery.js">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function(){
$("*").click(function(evt){
var lineage = $(this)
.parents()
.get()
.reverse()
.map(function(n){return n.nodeName.toLowerCase()})
.join(" > ");
evt.stopPropagation();
alert(lineage);
});
});