Internet Explorer strange text selection behavior - cannot select fragment of text containing whitespace

Question

I need to enable selecting certain fragment of text in IE for further JS processing.

Unfortunately, IE has strange text selection behaviour - when you try to select text fragment that contains whitespace, IE will extend selection to the whole words, e.g. if you try to select (using your mouse) only:

rem ips

fragment from the sentence:

Lorem ipsum sit dolor amet.

IE will highlight whole words:

Lorem ipsum

Does anybody know, how (and if it is possible) to force IE >= 6 to select exact fragment of text using mouse?