Reset SetTimeout

I have a pop-up menu; one of those where you scroll over the menu, and
a submenu pops up beneath it. Everything's running smoothly on every
browser I've tested with, except for one problem on every browser: the
"clearing" of the menu.

The menu itself is being called by:
onMouseOver="menu(1)" onMouseOut="clearIt()"

function menu(x) let's "x" refer to a predefined array, which
determines which menu to pop up. That menu is stored in a variable,
showMenu. If x==0, then it changes showMenu to a whitespace, thus
"clearing" the submenu altogether.

clearIt() is a simple function, pasted here:
function clearIt() { setTimeout("menu(Ɔ')", 7000) }

The idea is that the menu will disappear after 7 seconds. The problem
I'm having, though, is that the 7 seconds starts after the first
onMouseOut, and doesn't restart when the visitor mouses over the
second button. So, if I look at the first submenu for 6 seconds, then
when I go to the second button the menu only stays open for 1 second,
instead of starting the timer over.