sort items in a dropdown list without the first item

Question

I have the following code to sort the items in a dropdown list:

function sortDropDownListByText(selectId) {
    $(selectId).html($(selectId + " option").sort(function(a, b) {
       return a.text == b.text ? 0 : a.text < b.text ? -1 : 1
    })) 
}

this works fine except in cases where, in my first item, i have a **"Please select and item from the list" message . . **

is there anyway i can sort the items in the select list and keep the "Please select entry" as the first item in the list always?

EDIT:

In response to some of the answers, the "Please select item always has a value of 0"

Answer 1

function sortDropDownListByText(selectId) {
    var foption = $('#'+ selectId + ' option:first');
    var soptions = $('#'+ selectId + ' option:not(:first)').sort(function(a, b) {
       return a.text == b.text ? 0 : a.text < b.text ? -1 : 1
    });
    $('#' + selectId).html(soptions).prepend(foption);              

};

is your function.

Answer 2

Theoretically, I would approach the problem by removing the "Please select" entry, sorting the list, then append it again, once the sorting is done