how to get the element selected
<p>The dropdowns on the top right, I need to get the first three characters of the string of the type selected for example if the user selects Pizza Delivery i need the string "piz"</p>

<p>here is the <a href="http://posnation.com/pre_config/pre_config_step_3.php?type=Restaurant&amp;count=1" rel="nofollow">url</a></p>

<pre><code>    &lt;div class="select-big select-small right"&gt;
&lt;div class="select-holder"&gt;
&lt;div class="button"&gt;
&lt;div class="icon left"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p class="text left"&gt;Fast Food Pos System&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;a href="#" class="trigger right"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;div class="cl"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="dropdown"&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="icon-s icon-s1"&gt;Grocery&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="icon-s icon-s2"&gt;Pizza Delivery&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="icon-s icon-s3"&gt;Quick Service&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="icon-s icon-s4"&gt;Retail&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="icon-s icon-s5"&gt;Salon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="#" class="icon-s icon-s6"&gt;Bar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;div class="cl"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>here is the Jquery that I am working with </p>

<pre><code>    $('.select-big ul li a').click(function () {
$(this).parents('.select-holder').find('.text').text($(this).text());
     // I need the string here
</code></pre>
