Some news articles recently caught my eye regarding Oxford announcing some of the most popular/common words used by people. This is not specific to copywriting, but nonetheless interesting I think.

Here is an 'edited down' version of the report I found from Oxford

English Uncovered: the hundred commonest English words (http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/wordfrom/revisedcoed11/?view=uk)

Nouns
1 time
2 person
3 year
4 way
5 day
6 thing
7 man
8 world
9 life
10 hand
11 part
12 child
13 eye
14 woman
15 place
16 work
17 week
18 case
19 point
20 government
21 company
22 number
23 group
24 problem
25 fact

The report also makes some observations and reviews verbs, adjectives, etc.