First things first: I can't stop trying to say duh-VORR-jacques, as in, the Czech composer.

The Dvorak keyboard, however, is named after a guy named August Dvorak, a human untrailed by diacritical marks of any kind. One must imagine that his name is to be pronounced duh-VORR-ock. Furthermore, he was born in Everett, Washington, and taught at UW.

What he invented is the Dvorak keyboard. The Dvorak keyboard might—might—change my life.

My husband just forwarded to me a 2002 story by Nicholas Thompson in Slate about the Dvorak keyboard. If you don't know, it's a layout of the letters on the board that's supposed to make eminently more sense—in terms of efficiency and ergonomy—than the Qwerty layout.

I have chronic pain in my hands, fingers, thumbs, and forearms that is most definitely caused by typing. I don't need to type faster. I just need to type less painfully.

If you were me, would you try to switch?

Before you answer that, here is my preexisting condition: I sometimes find myself pounding the keys without noticing. I'll also discover I have my shoulders glued up to my ears and all that sort of thing. (I also wear bizarre unconscious expressions on my face when typing, and this also happens when I am watching the movies, a time when I also make fists and perform other nearly involuntary hand tics. All my nervous action lives in my hands and face.)

Now that you know about my nervous action, do you think am I doomed with any keyboard?