wet your appetite/whet your appetite
It is natural to think that something mouth-watering “wets your appetite,” but actually the expression is “whet your appetite”—sharpen your appetite, as a whetstone sharpens a knife.
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Other errors arise from the confusion of the aspirated "wh" sound with the unaspirated "w" sound, when the latter begins a more familiar word.
ReplyDeleteGunwale (the upper edge of a boat's hull) appears as "gunwhale."
Bellwether (the leading sheep of a flock) appears as "bellweather."