Hmmm,

Thanks for the link on stenography. The fact that they use shorthand is further support to the suggestion that speech is much faster than typing.

The QWERTY keyboard was never designed with typing efficiency in mind. It is purely a legacy of the mechanical problem of manual typewriters, which was collisions between the hammers. The fact that it is not particularly efficient slows the typist down and further reduces the incidence of collisions.

Please remember that the QWERTY keyboard design pre-dates touch typing by at least 10 years. the envisaged typing style when it was invented was a two fingered "pick and poke"

You need to look at layouts such as Dvorak, for an ergonomic touch typing design. I believe that it still holds the World Record?