THE "WHAT" AND THE "HOW" OF DISCOURSE

Upon listening to a discourse, I tend to grasp both the meaning conveyed and how it is conveyed. I practice this in spoken discourse, which is less structured and coherent than writing. The way the speaker presents their ideas, the words, and the idioms used are important to me. I am more alert to idioms now than I was before I embarked on my phraseological research in English and Spanish. I often wonder why the speaker uses a particular idiom, and the answer usually is that they have no other way to express their idea or feelings. Count it for joy, one can't win for losing, made of different clay, when push comes to shove, are phrases that express ideas and feelings hard to deliver otherwise. 

"Count it for joy" implies finding happiness in difficult situations, which might take several sentences to explain without the idiom.

"One can't win for losing" succinctly expresses the feeling of continuous bad luck or failure despite efforts.

"Made of different clay" conveys the idea of fundamental differences in character or nature, which would be more verbose without the idiom.

"When push comes to shove" quickly conveys the idea of a critical point where decisive action is needed.