The Australian National Dictionary – the second edition of which has just been published – is based on historical principles and modelled on the large Oxford English Dictionary. Words and meanings are traced chronologically from their first occurrence in the language through to the present (or to the time when they cease to be used); the evidence for their history appears in the form of quotations from texts of various kinds, including printed books, journals, newspapers, manuscripts, and diaries – from the earliest, a 1698 letter referring to black swans that were seen in a voyage to the 'South Land', to more recent gems such as this quotation for 'footy frank' from a 2005 newspaper: the handsome teenager who was blessed with the personality of a footy frank and a similar bulge in his impossibly tight jeans.