Custom html in TD's without messing with sorting?

Hi there. First of all I love this plugin!

I have a lot of <span class="tooltip" title="Jan 5 2013 at 6:30 AM">3 Weeks ago</span> kind of stuff in my columns (td's).
This messes up sorting.

Any way to tell my datatable: "Hey, THIS is my custom content, HERE is the actual value."?

Thanks in advance!