Just store it in a variable outside the event processing closure, for example:
var original = $('someinput').getValue(); $('someinput').observe('whatever_event', function(ev) { $('someinput').getValue();
UPDATE. Replace the above code with the prototype. The jQuery version is below for reference.
var original = $('#someinput').val(); $('#someinput').whatever_event(function(ev) { this.val();
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