Cannot exclude element from string
<p>I have a paragraph of text and I need to wrap each group of words (comma separated) in a span tag so I can animate them when hovered on... easy enough. I need to do this to everything except the "a#close". I have tried using the ":not" selector but can't seem to get it to work as desired.</p>

<p>HTML</p>

<pre><code>&lt;div id="stuff"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Words Words Words, Words Words Words, Words Words Words, Words Words
Words, Words Words Words, Words Words Words, Words Words Words,
&lt;a href="#" id="close"&gt;Close&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>jQuery</p>

<pre><code>$(function() {
    $('#stuff:not(a#close)').each(function(){
    var text = $(this).html().split(','),
        len = text.length,
        result = []; 

    for( var i = 0; i &lt; len; i++ ) {
      result[i] = '&lt;span&gt;' + text[i] + '&lt;/span&gt;';
    }
    $(this).html(result.join(' '));
});
</code></pre>

<p>I can make it work as desired by changing the html mark up and putting the a#close in a p tag with a different ID, but would like to understand the :not selector better, that is if it is the right one to use.
thank you</p>
