Ever since Plato, the ability of words to mean something has generally been considered to be the central problem of philosophy: when we observe a common characteristic of distinct objects - say, that each of them is red - in what sense, if any, does it make sense to say that this common characteristic is a distinct thing, that exists of itself independently of the objects of which it is a characteristic? This is more a theoretical than a practical problem. For we experience on a daily basis that the words we use have communicative and predictive value, by and large.
For Plato, the answer was clear: the common characteristic was a property of a Form, from which the objects in question are imperfectly derived. Forms are eternal and immutable, the things derived from them are temporary and subject to change and decay. This explanation doesn't square with our ability to create new common characteristics every day, and therefore must be rejected outright.
In our age, there are philosophers who deny that the common characteristic has any independent existence at all, and maintain that these characteristics exist only in the individual and perhaps shared vocabularies of the observers. Effectively, this means that communication is impossible, which doesn't square with our experience that words work, and therefore must be rejected outright.
The QO approach is to say that although some common characteristics are indeed purely the result of coincidence and therefore insignificant, those that are the consequence of natural law are part and parcel of the nature of the universe, affecting objects in the universe and having an existence independent of them. This corresponds with our experience, and is therefore to be preferred.