Rather, the layout was intended to place common two-letter combinations on opposite sides of the keyboard. On manual typewriters, each key is mechanically connected to a lever that has the reversed image of a letter on it. If a typist were to hit two keys on the same side of the keyboard in rapid succession, the second lever on its way up would hit the first on its way down, the keys would become stuck together, and the typist would have to stop typing and unstick the keys. The qwerty layout was a clever design that minimized this problem. More about the early history of the typewriter and the qwerty keyboard is available for those who are interested.
Most people learn to type on a qwerty keyboard.
Most typists are reluctant to switch because they're afraid of how long it will take them to learn the new arrangement. This is a myth. Since typists were scarce during the war, the U.S. Navy selected fourteen typists for a 1944 study to assess whether Dvorak retraining would be feasible. It took an average of only 52 hours of training for the typists' speeds on the Dvorak keyboard to reach their average speeds on the qwerty keyboard. This corresponding increase in accuracy is hardly surprising, considering the obstacles to typing accurately on the qwerty keyboard.