"ou" particle to show "friendly warning"

[Alchemist]

Hi,

these days I'm shuffling through the pages of the grammar book "Mandarin Chinese - A functional reference grammar", written by Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson. It's a very thorough grammar book, but it lacks Chinese characters at all (every Chinese sentence is written in pinyin).

In the chapter about sentence-final particles, the authors talk about a mysterious "ou" particle, used to convey a friendly warning showing "concern and caring on the part of the speaker". Here are some examples from the book:

Xiao3xin1 ou. (= Be careful, ok?)

Yao4 zuo4 gong1ke4 ou. (= Listen, you'd better do your homework)

Wo3 yao4 da3 ni3 ou. (= Let me tell you... I will hit you)

None of my other grammar books talk about this particle. Moreover, I looked up "ou" on my Chinese dictionaries, and none of them reports a particle with that pinyin transcription.

Does anyone know more about this weird particle? How is it written in Chinese characters?

[Quest]

it's 喔 (o).

[hparade]

Is it more used in Taiwan?

[BeijingSlacker]

It's mostly used by teenage drama queens and people with equivalent IQ.

[Guest IVYtony]

听起来太嗲（dia3）了……呵呵

[wenjing*girl]

It's mostly used by teenage drama queens and people with equivalent IQ.

funny.

I think that just girls say it, right?

[browny]

hehe it's called "感叹词" in chinese (feeling expression word). i like 嘛 the best, like 不要嘛! and 啦 is also fun. if you spend more time using chinese (like chatting etc) then you'll get used to it, and now when to use them!