The article is devoted to the problem of linguistic variability from the standpoint of naive sociolinguistics. The material is the controversy of American readers about language and cultural contradictions, which are found in the popular novel by British writer E. L. James “Fifty Shades of Grey.” It is shown that the American readers of the novel find British lexical units specific to the British version of the English language in the speech of the American heroes (for example, the nouns pram , rucksack , sidelight , holiday , trousers , the verbs ring , collect , fetch , phrases of everyday communication and speech clichés, for example, be keen on , have a bath , sorted ). It is concluded that these words and expressions are perceived by Americans as facts of foreign linguoculture, lead to distortion of the speech portrait of the characters, destroy the integrity of the perception of the novel. The classification of the revealed metalanguage comments of native speakers of the American version of English is offered. It is shown that the disputes over the novel testify not so much to the mutual enrichment of the British and American versions of the English language, as to their conflict at the level of perception by native speakers. The author concludes that, despite the active interaction of options, reverse mechanisms aimed at building boundaries between options due to the desire to protect national identity continue to operate.