jquery/jquery-mobile — comment on commit a23f0d3a0e0512b4bfcb9aa01b51e5eb39259cf3
File:  line 0
By imjoshdean:

Yep. "el" is the jQuery object for the element. You can't rely on the attribute being "data-role" 100% of the time, you have to use the jqmData function.