I was toying with the simple list filter plugin and ended up with this markup.

<div id="lab">
  <ul id="list">
    <li><a href="">USA</a></li>
  <ul>
  <p>
    <a href=''>USA</a>
  </p>
</div>

I want to get all links that contains the word USA. Simple enough. jQuery supports contains selector.

$(":contains('USA')");

Above query results in following items.

[html, body#body, div#lab, ul#list, li, a, ul, p, a]

That is because contains looks for given string under all the descendants.

has method to rescue

jQuery has has method which returns the list of elements which have a descendant which has the given string.

b = $('*').has(":contains('USA')");

Above query results in following items.

[html, body#body, div#lab, ul#list, li, ul, p]

Final result

a = $(":contains('USA')");
b = $('*').has(":contains('USA')");
c = a.not(b) ;
console.log(c);

Above query results in following items.

 [a, a]