SO fiddle

Test Fiddle mainly for SO Questions

by Nick Craver

HTML

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.4/themes/overcast/jquery-ui.css">
<ul class="currentlist">
<li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a>
<li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a>
 <ul>
   <li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a></li>
   <li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a></li>
 </ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a></li>
<li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a>
 <ul>
   <li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a></li>
   <li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a></li>
 </ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#" class="show-anyway">hello</a><a href="#" class="world">world</a></li>
</ul>

CSS

a.show-anyway
{
  display: block;
}
a.world
{
  display: none;
}
a.active
{
  display: block;
}
li { padding-left: 20px; }
.world { padding-left: 40px; }

JavaScript

$(function() {
  $('.currentlist li').hover(function() {
    $(this).children('a').addClass('active').end()
           .parents().children('a').removeClass('active');
  }, function() {
    $(this).children('a').removeClass('active').end()
           .parents().children('a').addClass('active');
  });
});