The documentation for css(name) in http://docs.jquery.com/CSS/css states, "Shorthand CSS properties (e.g. margin, background, border) are not supported. For example, if you want to retrieve the rendered margin, use: $(elem).css('marginTop') and $(elem).css('marginRight'), and so on." However, the documentation for jQuery(expression, [context]) at http://docs.jquery.com/Core/jQuery uses the following shorthand as example code:

$("div > p").css("border", "1px solid gray");