Sort DOM elements by jQuery

HTML:

<ul class="alphaList">
  <li>apples</li>
  <li>cats</li>
  <li>bears</li>
</ul>

JavaScript/jQuery:

var elems = $('.alphalist li').detach().sort(function (a, b) {
  return ($(a).text() < $(b).text() ? -1
        : $(a).text() > $(b).text() ? 1 : 0);
   });
$('.alphalist').append(elems);

Note: jQuery detach() gets (removing) elements from DOM.