A study of the phonetics of everyday conversational interaction looked specifically at the occurrence of the "oh" particle, a signal of the receipt of new information. Focus was on the phonetic characteristics of the "oh" utterance in this context. Data were drawn from British and American recorded telephone conversations. It was observed that when the "oh" particle is freestanding, the pitch characteristics are very constrained, with only falling pitch movement evident, and the utterance is designed to end the telling of the news or curtail the topic. The more common "oh"-initiated turns with additional structure, either indicating listener assessment or soliciting the next utterance, are routinely placed at the end of a topic/news-informing and often have a rising pitch movement. A third type of "oh" utterance includes a partial repeat of the prior turn. Two subtypes can be identified, with similar but slightly different phonetic details. The fourth type of "oh" utterance consists of freestanding "oh" tokens in response to informings initiated by the news-bearer, with phonetic characteristics dependent on the previous turn. The final utterance type is an "oh" signaling surprise, with a rising-falling pitch. A 21-item bibliography is included. (MSE)