Well you will have to enclose it in some kind of tag - which will become an object or node which you can reference using JavaScript. Here is how to do it for IE5 NS6:
...
</script>
function setText(object){
object.innerText = "This is now different"
}
</script>
...
...
<span onMouseOver="setText(this)" origText="text here!" onMouseOut="this.innerText=this.origText">text here!</span>...
You could extend this to work with many of these elements using one function, if you add that the function accepts a string as an argument, and then uses that string as the new innerText. This will also work with IE4.x.
Also I have created a variable belonging to the span object simply by defining it in the tag - this is far sinpler than using prototype - and gives a simple mouse out reset which can be cut and pasted into any tag - assuming variable naming is consistent.
Also you can use any tag which has innerText, <b>, <i> whatever. All you need is a node.
If you wanted to change the formatting of the text - then use InnerHTML instead of innerText - this way the new text could be a different color, size, weight etc...
hope this helps - ;-)
b2 - benbiddington@surf4nix.com