Ways people use words

I just read that, according to the Word Frequency Book compiled by John B. Carroll and others (published in the early 1970s, as best as I can tell, so this information might be long outdated), the most common nouns in the English language are, in order, "time," "people," "way," "water," and "words."  I don't know whether to be more mystified by the inclusion of water--I'm reminded of R. Murray Schafer, in The Soundscape: "What was the first sound heard? It was the caress of the waters...All roads lead back to water. We shall return to the sea." (15-18)--or by our apparent obsession with ourselves ("people") and our most prominent symbols ("words"). That one of the most common uses of our language is to refer to ourselves and to our language is not a surprising revelation, but nonetheless full of implications.