Ebbie said:

In a couple of linguistic courses I took, I was told that Americans saying'hwen,hwat, hwere, hwale,' rather than 'wen, wat, wale', etc, meant that their formative years had been spent west of the Rocky Mountains.

They tawcha rong, Ebbie. I was never west of the Rocky Mountains until I was 37 years old, and it's always been hwen, hwair, hwat, etc.

I'm from Minnie-soda, y'know.

Dave Oesterreich