title: How do I access the text from a select, not the selected option text but what appears in the select pane?
body: <p>I am writing a generalized jQuery translation plugin and have run into a problem with the text appearing in the select area, which does not get translated. For example, here is an English select:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;select&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 0"&gt;Choose an option&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 1"&gt;one&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 2"&gt;two&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 3"&gt;three&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When rendered, the select shows "Choose and option" above a drop-down box.</p>
  
  <p>After translation:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;select&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 0"&gt;Choisisez une option&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 1"&gt;un&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 2"&gt;dues&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value=" = 3"&gt;trois&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But when rendered, the select text shows "Choose and option" in English, even though the automatic default option is translated.</p>
  
  <p>My selector is <code>$("select option")</code> and I have also tried <code>$("select&gt;option)</code>.</p>
  
  <p>How can I reference this so the default text is shown in French. I would prefer a jQuery selector string answer, that is without any .find, .parent etc.</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong>
  Please let me emphasize, it has nothing to do with the plugin code. This is purely a jQuery selector question. The last thing I tried was "select option:nth-child(1):parent" which did not solve the problem.</p>
  
  <p>Here is a <a href="http://test.bunkerhill.com/" rel="nofollow">link to the site</a> that will illustrate what I mean. Just choose a language from the drop-down box at the top right of the page.</p>