Display a description for each select option jquery

I have run into a problem and would appreciate help devising a creative, and lightweight approach around it. I need to show descriptive text every time user selects on option from a select list. I would use something like:

$('#description').html($(this).attr('title') );

But the title tag is used by a plugin called msDropdown(a skinning plugin) and seems to not function as usual because of it.

Any help is appreciated.

If I were you, I would avoid using the title attribute. That's not what it's for. Use custom data- attributes instead -- they make syntactic sense, are valid HTML under HTML5 and function happily in all browsers, and jQuery integrates them into its data() functionality.

For instance:

HTML:

<select id="mySelect">
    <option value="1" data-description="Item 1">Item 1</option>
    <option value="2" data-description="Item 2">Item 2</option>
    <option value="3" data-description="Item 3">Item 3</option>
</select>
<span id="description"></span>

jQuery:

$('#mySelect').change(function(){
    var $selected = $(this).find(':selected');

    $('#description').html($selected.data('description'));
}).trigger('change'); // run handler immediately

See jsFiddle example.

I'd take a slightly different approach, and use a pairing between the select list and an ol (or any other element):

html:

<select id="selectElement" id="selectElement">
    <optgroup label="Select a fruit">
        <option value="apples">Apples</option>
        <option value="oranges">Oranges</option>
    </optgroup>
</select>

<ol id="explanatoryText">
    <li>The first option chooses 'apples.'</li>
    <li>This option chooses 'oranges' instead.</li>
</ol>

css:

ol#explanatoryText li {
    display: none;
}

ol#explanatoryText li.descriptor {
    display: list-item;
}

jQuery:

$('#selectElement').click(
    function(){
        $(this).change();
    });
$('#selectElement').change(
    function(){
        var index = $(this).find('option:selected').index();
        $('#explanatoryText li.descriptor').removeClass('descriptor');
        $('#explanatoryText li').eq(index).addClass('descriptor');
    });

JS Fiddle demo.