I want to talk about something that I observed here and which can be interesting to comment on.
It is about the perception of the language in the US and in the UK. Indeed I noticed that Americans were less regarding about common mistakes that you can make or about your accent when you speak the language of Shakespeare. And I think I know why.
According to me, American people and British people have two different perceptions of their language.
For American people, the language is a tool in order to communicate. The US were build upon the idea of grouping different cultures and origins in one country. Ben Blatt from Slate has notably created some interesting maps to visualize the distribution of languages other than English in the US. Because 20% of the population is claiming that English is not their mother tongue (against 5% for the UK), it is more common to hear different accents. Thus the English language is more a common denominator than something more important. I think this is directly related to the opposition New world vs Ancient world.
For British people, their language is their heritage as the language of Moliere is French people's heritage. Their language is strongly linked to their history and you can't mess with it this easily.
This is one first reason to explain the quote "Two nations divided by a common language", don't you think?
