Mutable lexeme

A mutable lexeme is a complex lexeme with one or more variable constituents. For example, "the mother of all battles", coined by Saddam Hussein, was altered into "the mother of all meteors" by the New York Times when reporting a spectacular meteor seen over the Eastern United States.

Some mutable lexemes have more than one variable, for example, "you don't have to be a X to Y that", where X = "brain surgeon" or "rocket scientist", and Y = "understand" or "appreciate" or "see".

When all constituents of a lexeme are mutable, it is said to be a construction.

Sources

• Language and Reality: Selected Writings of Sydney Lamb, Continuum, 2004.