Excuse the Pun

Somewhere after your child’s second birthday, the realisation sets in that it’s high time your toddler starts learning manners. “Give milk. Now!” may be cute for a baby, but for a toddler the expectation rapidly changes to: “May I please have some milk, mommy”.
And so, you find yourself repeating endlessly: "Say please, please please! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
And especially: "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me."

I don't know if it's a South African or an Afrikaans habit, but we use the term "verskoon my" (excuse me) a lot and in various instances: When we sneeze. When we want to excuse ourselves from the table. When we want to catch someone's attention. When we accidentally interrupt someone. When we purposefully interrupt someone. When someone (accidentally or purposefully) interrupts us. When we want to ask a stranger a question. When we accidentally bump into someone (in the grocery store, not with a car.) When someone bumps into us (in the grocery store or with a car), although in the latter case it would become "ver-@#$%^%$#-skoon my!!", which is not (intentionally) taught to children.

Of course, literally bumping into someone in the grocery store was a privilege only for enjoyment in the glory days prior to the new normal "anderhalve meter sameleving" which we are now living. So really, these days we only use "verskoon my" in 46 cases, instead of 47.

Which explains why we, being South African / Afrikaans / parents, were particularly pedantic about teaching our toddler to say: "Excuse me".
"Verskoon my, verskoon my, verskoon my."

And then, of course, we arrived in the Netherlands. And Dutch is mos the sister-language to Afrikaans. So we will just gooi die taal lekker and learn as we go, and if we don't understand - no problem! We will just say "verskoon my, do you mind repeating your sentence?" ala Afri-Dutch, like the well-mannered people that we are.

Except that "verskoon my" suddenly has a whole new meaning on this continent. Verschoon mij literally means: Clean me. As in: I demand that you change my diaper!

Now if a grown-up, says: "Change my diaper, I am looking for the bus stop," you will get a weird look and be left with zero directions as the victim scrambles off. But you will be fine and eventually find the bus stop. You might have to re-evaluate your perception of the Dutch (and yourself, and your Dutch-speaking abilities), once you realise what you have demanded from a stranger. But life will go on.

But for a child, verschoon mij could be a very common thing to say. And it could therefore rapidly result in a catastrophe if not clarified or acted upon!
Say, for example, you are at the swimming pool for a family outing, your child sneezes and hollers: "Verskoon my!"
If your child is not immediately removed from the pool, these two simple, well-mannered and well-intended words could result in a swimming pool evacuation! Or worse - judgemental looks from other parents who speak proper Dutch and not Afri-Dutch.

And so, after months and months of teaching our toddler to say "verskoon my" for intended use in 47 or 46 scenarios (and him finally perfecting the art just as our plane touched down on Schipol airport), we agreed that it was just safer to replace "verskoon my" with the Dutch alternative: Sorry.
Which, when used in an Afrikaans sentence, really just seems like a linguistically incorrect word, lazily thrown in.

Therefore, sorry, if you will excuse me. I need to go and think about the 20 000 new words (languages!) we could have taught our toddler, while we were frantically repeating words which he can no longer use.

I also might need to tell my neighbour that I eventually found the bus stop.