JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground by joshpauljohnson May 16, 2012 HTML <form> <div> <input type="text" placeholder="Something To Tolerate"/> <input type="submit" value="Tolerate"/> </div> </form> <div id="out"> I'll tolerate <span class="x placeholder">SOMETHING</span> but I don't see the value in it. </div> CSS html, body, input { font-family: helvetica; } form input { color: gray; font-size: 14pt; } #out { font-size: 40pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 50px 0 0 50px; text-shadow: 2px 2px #DDDDDD; } .x.placeholder { color: #B4A8A8; text-decoration: italic; } JavaScript $("form").submit(function(e) { e.preventDefault(); var tolerator = $(this).find("input[type=text]").val(); if (!tolerator) { $("#out .x").text("SOMETHING").addClass("placeholder"); } else { $("#out .x").text(tolerator).removeClass("placeholder"); } });