Side note: that is an Urban Legend, sir.
From Wikipedia: "Consequently, jams were especially serious, because the typist could only discover the mishap by raising the carriage to inspect what he had typed. The solution was to place commonly used letter-pairs (like 'th' or 'st') so that their type bars were not neighboring, avoiding jams. Contrary to popular belief, the QWERTY layout was not designed to slow the typist down, but rather to speed up typing by preventing jams. There is also evidence that, aside from the issue of jamming, keys being farther apart increases typing speed on its own, because it encourages alternation between the hands."
(emphasis mine)