If liquid or food gets down the wrong tube (the Trachea) we may get pneumonia or worse yet, quick asphyxiation.
And even if it's liquid, you might not choke but you then become a good candidate for pneumonia. And we swallow liquid (saliva) almost constantly.
I once challenged the class not to swallow for the entire period; and after 15 minutes we all looked like a pack of rabid writhing wretches. Because the class was mostly girls you could say that we were a "room of rabid writhing retching wenches."
Sorry about that, I just like tongue twisters.
Obviously most of us have not choked on our food nor gotten pneumonia. That is because nature has built in some safeguards.
At the top of the trachea, which is a cartilaginous ringed tube, is a valve "box" which can close the entrance to the tube. This is made up of two cartilaginous sections: the cricoid and the thyroid cartilage.