Learn English – Except only + clause

grammaticality

"…what things do they provide us? For instance, a donkey looks like a horse, except only it is smaller than a horse."

As you can see, the bold part confuses me. As far as I know, except is used as conjunction with a clause, such as:

"I would like to bail him out, except I don’t have any money."

I don't know whether the bold part in the sentence I posted above is grammatically correct. Please help me!

Best Answer

I'm not saying it's incorrect but it doesn't feel natural. I would use except that:

used to give a reason why something is not possible or true

[Cambridge Online Dictionary]

A donkey looks like a horse, except that it is smaller than a horse.

or simply

A donkey looks like a horse, only smaller.