Qwerty is designed to slow you down

...is a myth.

I picked up this correction from the Dvorak Zine when it was featured on Slashdot a few years ago. It stuck with me because I had, like one of the zine researchers, believed it to be true. It seemed to be logical, yes? Science knows, the qwerty layout itself isn't logical.

But it's a complete fabrication. QWERTY, as a layout, was created BEFORE there were typists, during the design process for the first typewriters. There WAS NOBODY TO SLOW DOWN.

But a lot of people don't know this, and so the old myth persists.

This came up recently in a course I'm taking on the human-computer user interface. I mentioned that I thought the keyboard/mouse combo was a great interface (it is), which brought up qwerty, which someone mentioned was designed to slow you down, which I corrected,

and was then corrected by the instructor. YES, he said, it WAS designed to slow down typing. Not only that, but the most commonly used keys were placed in positions harder to hit (weaker fingers, the bottom row, etc), and common sequences (like the word-ending 'ion') were broken up so you couldn't hit them all together...

All of which is completely wrong.

The 13 most commonly used letters in English are, in order, ETAONRISHDLUC (this changes over time, and I haven't checked in a few years; you might be more familiar with the previous ETAOIN SHRDLU).

Five (ASHDL) are on the home row, easiest to hit. Six (ETORIU) are on the top row, 2nd easiest to hit. Only two (NC) are on the bottom row.

Four (TRHU) are struck by the index fingers alone (I also hit C this way, because I learned WRONG), the strongest fingers.

'ION' uses three adjacent fingers on one hand. It's not strictly right-to-left, but you very much can hit them all together.

Anyway. I tried to put down a common myth and was "corrected" by the teacher. You'd think this wouldn't bother me anymore. The me-being-correct-but-not-believed thing, I mean. I do seem to have a very Cassandra-esque curse in this regard.