Why won't this jQuery work in IE?

I'm working on a site someone else developed. They used the following jQuery code to produce the drop down in the menu:

        <script type="text/javascript">

            var site_menu_categories_tID = null;
            $(document).ready(
                function(){
                    $("#site-menu-categories").click(
                        function(){
                            self = $(this);
                            $(".submenu-holder").show();
                        }
                    );
                    $("#site-menu-categories").mouseleave(
                        function(){
                            site_menu_categories_tID = setTimeout(function(){
                                $(".submenu-holder").trigger('mouseleave');
                                clearTimeout(site_menu_categories_tID);
                                site_menu_categories_tID=null;
                            },500);
                        }
                    );
                    $(".submenu-hol开发者_Python百科der").mouseenter(
                        function(){
                            if(site_menu_categories_tID!=null){
                                clearTimeout(site_menu_categories_tID);
                                site_menu_categories_tID=null;
                            }
                        }
                    );
                    $(".submenu-holder").mouseleave(
                        function(){
                            self = $(this);
                            self.hide();
                        }
                    );
                }
            );
        </script>

It works fine in firefox but not in any of the IE's (8 and below haven't tested in 9). Are there any apparent errors that you can see?

To avoid cluttering the global scope, get rid of the first self = $(this); and add var to the second one or simply replace those two lines with $(this).hide();

Apparently IE doesn't like you naming a global variable self.