Is there a specific/proper/technical term for it? And not just the R-flop, but specifically the L-flop to W.
What would work here:
“I'm watching Formula 1 on Sky Sports and the __________ of the Brit announcers is so annoying – it's killing me."
“Billie Piper is so hot. Her __________ in Dr. Who has me rubbing my legs together like a cricket.”
You get the idea.
- Rhotacism – I think related to other speech “impediments”, possibly too specific to the letter R, or at least not specific enough, I don't think
- Elmer Fudd Syndrome – too pejorative
- Baby Talk – perfect in above sentences, but I think reserved for intentional use.
- Johnathan Ross Syndrome – ?
- The L/R to W speech impediment – ?
- L-vocalization – ?
- “non-rhotic dialect r fronting” – ?
Ref.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld3A3QCpXd4
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6j63IyE-EM
- http://dialectblog.com/2011/05/26/the-trubbow-with-l-vocalization/
- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElmuhFuddSyndwome
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotacism
- http://dialectblog.com/2011/02/07/jonathan-ross-and-the-letter-r/
Best Answer
L-vocalization is the term that would be used by linguists. In addition to British English, you can see the change in Polish and Brazilian Portuguese as well (a dark L is pronounced as a vowel or glide instead of as a lateral). Shakespeare himself made a little joke of this in Hamlet:
Received Pronunciation is said to be a non-rhotic because speakers do not pronounce the r at the end of words. I'd want to check with some of our UK contributors, but I think that it is a loss of r (and lengthening of the previous vowel) rather than a change from /r/ to /w/.