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There exist lots of non-wetting liquids in which humans cannot breathe.

Your lungs have sensors that can detect being coated by a liquid which invokes coughing. In that sense, you can detect wetness.

They detect being coated, no matter liquid or not. (Source: Parents who smoke. And don't tell me the crap they are inhaling is a liquid.)

Secondhand smoke does not feel the same as drowning.