I feel SO dumb right now 😭
I was watching a counterstrike video (I don’t play CS) and the youtuber said “…who is one of the best North America players…” while a statistics page showed kill/death, win/loss, etc. But it also showed “NA”. This along with the verbal “North America” was enough for the very lazy neurons in my brain finally make a basic connection that those two things are connected. I always assumed it just meant “somewhere we don’t have an abbreviation for” or “location private” or something.
Also very lazy is when these gaming commentators say EU instead of Europe, which are definitely not the same thing.
Must suck to be a Norwegian Pro Player.
Or Swiss, English, Turkish, Kosovarian, …
Are there any? I’m Swiss and only a few Norwegians came to mind 😀 Like rain in CS and TheViper in AoE although I think TheViper lives in Germany now.
Ah wait actually good hint regarding Kosovo. I think DauT is Serbian. (To be clear I’m not saying Kosovo is Serbia, it just made me think about the region.)
I don’t know tbh I just wanted to expand the list of countries which are European and not EU a bit more. Serbia is a separate country also fitting those criteria of course
When combined with other data on the same line and written without the slash, it usually won’t mean not applicable.
If it’s in some sort of published professional context, I wouldn’t read it as not applicable without the slash.
North America is a reasonable guess when specifying region could be context appropriate. Like you said with video game team names, but also company/org names, species common names, or treaties.
Near Airport
AKA don’t book this hotel if you value your sleep.
whoooooosh
As someone who spent the largest chunk of their working life involved in localizing games, and doesn’t come from North America, this post was an ‘oh yeah, that’s knowledge I take for granted’ moment.
You shouldn’t feel dumb; it’s just not been a useful thing for you to know.
NA engines, ie “NA v8”, doesnt mean “north american v8”, but “naturally aspirated v8”.
NA beers, ie “NA Budweiser”, doesnt mean “north american budweiser”, but “non-alcoholic budweiser”.
And IIRC FI for Forced Induction?
Florida Ounces energy
Florida gets their own measurement and all I get in California is increased risk of cancer and reproductive harm in everything 😔
“Not applicable” is typically abbreviated n/a or N/A but I guess reading it aloud would sound the same as NA
Frustratingly, I’ve seen it shortened to NA several times
Reading aloud I’d usually still say “not applicable”
plus sometimes they only allocate two characters
Lol that’s a totally understandable and relatable flub. It’s one of those things that’s only relevant when you already know it’s there and what it means. Otherwise there’s no reason for your brain to think twice about it, so you subconsciously file it away with the most common meaning for NA. And every time you see it in passing you inadvertently reinforce that meaning. I find myself doing that shit all that time. The eureka moment sure is fun though! Our brains are wild.
