Question: Please elucidate and explain the linguistics subtext in this [repartee](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/46423/is-the-word-thing-necessary-in-the-following-sentence#comment85876_46426) below? I've never studied linguistics, so please explain intelligibly using only simple language.

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> 1. *Closest* there can stand on its own as a substantive. *Thing* is not needed. Both versions are idiomatic.
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> 2. "substantive"? You mean our own "nominal"? I thought `substantive was old-fashioned` English. – MARamezani 11 hours ago
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> 3. The new grammarians are very protective of their jargon :-) – TRomano 11 hours ago 
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4. ODO: [substantive](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/substantive) [noun] = (also **noun substantive**) {Grammar, dated} A noun.

5. [nominal](http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/nominterm.htm) = Relating to a noun or to any word or word group that functions as a noun.

ODO supports the claim in 2: `substantive was old-fashioned`. Yet I don't understand the significance of 'nominal' or user TRomano's last comment?

Answer: 
"Substantive" is the traditional Latin term for the word class that in English is called noun. "Nominal" (or, better, "nominal group") is the term that is used by some linguists for "noun phrase," according to en.wikipedia. Google for grammar term nominal.
In Latin grammar "nomen" was the term for all word classes with a declension (substantives, adjectives, pronouns). The adjective form of "nomen" is "nominal." Later it was thought that "substantive" is not a good enough term. In French they used "le nom" and in English "noun" – both "nom" and "noun" are derived from "nomen," just another name for the same thing. "Nominal group" is the same as "noun group."
The term *nominal* may refer to a noun (a house, love), a pronoun (she), an adjective (beautiful) or a numeral (one hundred).

Because some writers do not use the term *noun* in its usual sense but use it as synonymous with *nominal*, the term *substantive* may be used for nouns in the narrow sense to avoid any ambiguity; hence the terms *substantive noun* and *adjective noun*, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun#Substantive_as_a_word_for_noun>

But to make things even more confusing, it seems that some authors use the terms *noun* and *substantive* vice versa, with *substantive* being equal to *nominal* and *noun* used in the narrow sense, e.g. <https://www.thoughtco.com/substantive-grammar-1692157>