$this vs $(this) in jQuery

Question

I\'ve seen some discussions on SO regarding $(this) vs $this in jQuery, and they make sense to me. (See discussion here for an example.)

Bu

Answer 1

You usually use var $this = $(this); to avoid creating a new jQuery object more often than necessary. In case of the code below you only create one object instead of two/four. It is completely unrelated to chainability.

You could also call it that, $thi$ or anything else (don't use the latter one though, it's ugly :p) as $ is just a simple character in JavaScript, exactly like a-z are.