Q:

HTML tag to simply give a text an id

Is there a html tag to simply give a text an id/class?
Let's say I have the text "email" in front of an input tag, and i want to change the text (with js) on button click. I'd need an id... p would kick the input on a new line (which i don't want) and font is a bit outdated.
Any ideas?

A:

The element for describing a subsequent input tag should be a label tag, which has to have a for attribute that contains the name of the corresponding input tag. You can therefore select that element as a label with a particular attribute.
Example
<label for="email">Email: </label><input type="text" name="email" />

and to select it and change its text:
jQuery('label[for=email]').text('your new label text');

Note that this is the only solution (for labeling inputs) which also meets accessibility standards. 
You can style it any way you want using CSS.

A:

The <span> element is a generic (i.e. it has no associated semantics) inline element that can be used for marking some content for access via CSS / JS / etc.
However, "the text 'email' in front of an input" sounds very much like a <label> element so you should probably use that instead.

