Doesn't he just?

[susanna76]

Is "Doesn't he just?" a common turn of phrase? I tried looking it up in the BNC and COCA corpora but got no matches.

Here's from Catherine Alliott's novel Olivia's Luck:

'He spits!' she reported in horror [about a guest mingling at a dinner party].
'Doesn't he just?' I agreed.

Thank you!

 

[exgerman]

S:Is it a common phrase? Ex: isn't it just?

It's the tag question He does, doesn't he? expressing agreement combined with just = exactly.

 

[susanna76]

Hi exgerman, I see what you're saying but I haven't heard people use this "just" here. Or maybe I just haven't noticed. "He does, doesn't he?" is actually what I would have expected.

 

[exgerman]

He does, doesn't he = yes he does spit
Doesn't he just? = that's exactly what he does.