"screaming is a fairly typical activity of characters in Greek drama . . . Sophocles has invented for Electra a language of lament that is like listening to an X-ray. Electra's cries are just bones of sound. I itemize the cries of Electra as follows:
1. O
2. IO
3. PHEU
4. AIAI
5. TALAINA
6. OIMOI MOI
7. IO MOIMOI
8. EE IO
9. EE AIAI
10. IO GONAI
11. IOMIO TALAINA
12. OI 'GO TALAINA
13. OTOTOTOTOI TO TOI
14. IO MOI MOI DYSTENOS
. . . In range and diversity of aural construction Electra surpasses all other screamers . . . as units of sound they employ the usual features of ritual lament ( assonance, alliteration, internal rhyme, balance, symmetry, repetition) in unusual ways. She cries, for example, certain unpronounceable concatenations of hiatus like EE AIAI or EE IO which hold the voice and the mouth open for the whole length of a measure of verse and are as painful to listen to as they are to say . . . (wings of screaming that are strained to sharp points) . . ." Anne Carson. The translator's forward in Sophocles Electra

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