Setting colspan attribute with an empty string

Setting value of colSpan to a non-number causes an error on IE, but not other browser.

HTML

<button id="set-with-attribute">Set with colSpan attribute</button>
<button id="set-with-jquery">Set with jQuery</button>


<table>
    <tr>
        <td id="column" colspan="2"/>
    </tr>
</table>

CSS

table {
  border: 2px solid red;
}

JavaScript

var column = $("#column");
$("#set-with-attribute").click(function() { column[0].colSpan = ""; });
$("#set-with-jquery").click(function() { column.attr("colspan", ""); });