Please reference http://docs.jquery.com/How_jQuery_Works, the Chainability segment.
I'm confused on the given description of .end(): You can take this even further, by adding or removing elements from the selection, modifying those elements and then reverting to the old selection, for example: $("a") .filter(".clickme") .click(function(){ alert("You are now leaving the site."); }) .end() <a href="http://google.com/" class="clickme">I give a message when you leave</a> Methods that modify the jQuery selection and can be undone with end(), are the following: add(), children(), eq(), filter(), find(), next(), not(), parent(), parents(), siblings() and slice(). What does reverting and undone mean here? When I run the code, the link click event runs the alert, I hit Ok, and it passes me to Google. So the words reverting and undone confuse me, as I would take this to mean the modified click event would be "undone" and never executed. So what does .end() really do? A friend thinks it could be a chain terminator, though he never uses it. Is it just a cleanup thing part of good practice and not technically needed? Thanks for educating a real jQuery beginner.