There may be slight nuances of meaning, e.g The noun customer is clear to all of us In american english, a single woman may be considered 'wifey' if she is stereotypically suitable marriage material for a sexist type of man, and in the uk, it.
The men might have different opinions, and circumstances alter cases, but i expect wifey would take a dim view of the diminutive That says that my habbit to say except of is a mistake? By the same token, girlie / sonny today are likely to be seen as insulting / disrespectful in many contexts (but lassie / laddie are more generally acceptable in scotland)
I don't really remember the context that this correction was in Anyway, after sometime i saw this article in cambridge which is talking about the difference between except for to apart from
