The title pretty much says it. I don’t even know what we call that… The sound “uh oh”- but we all know what it means: “oh – shit–something – bad – now”. Is this just an English thing? Is this sound understood across cultures?
It’s not universal. In Chinese it’s something like “Owh…”, and in French… I can’t remember. If you say it with a horrified face while cringing in fear, it’d probably be understood across cultures. If you just say “Uh oh” plainly, it’d probably just sound like a random interjection.
The French version is “Oh, oh”, sung to the same tune as in English.
In Spanish it’s probably Ay, no! or just Aaay!, although it can be oh, oh. I’m not sure if the latter is in imitation of the English, though.
An identical thread from June of this year:
“Uh-oh” in other languages.
And, from that thread, it seems there are similar sounding versions in many but not all languages.
“Huh,” on the other hand, does seem to be universal.