diff --git a/src/hnsw/external_index.c b/src/hnsw/external_index.c
index aee3aa9de..ae3bbbd4a 100644
--- a/src/hnsw/external_index.c
+++ b/src/hnsw/external_index.c
@@ -638,7 +638,7 @@ void *ldb_wal_index_node_retriever(void *ctxp, int id)
                      NULL,
                      NULL,
                      0,
-                     "Pinned more tuples during node retrieval than will fir in work_mem, cosider increasing work_mem");
+                     "pinned more tuples during node retrieval than will fit in work_mem, cosider increasing work_mem");
 #endif
             fa_cache_insert(&ctx->fa_cache, id, nodepage->node);
 
diff --git a/test/sql/hnsw_insert.sql b/test/sql/hnsw_insert.sql
index d55e6184e..b4b6b85f5 100644
--- a/test/sql/hnsw_insert.sql
+++ b/test/sql/hnsw_insert.sql
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 -- Test HNSW index inserts on empty table
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
-set work_mem = '10MB';
+-- set an artificially low work_mem to make sure work_mem exceeded warnings are printed
+set work_mem = '64kB';
 
 CREATE TABLE small_world (
     id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
@@ -20,6 +21,9 @@ INSERT INTO small_world (v) VALUES ('{1,1,1,1}');
 
 DROP TABLE small_world;
 
+-- set work_mem to a value that is enough for the tests
+set work_mem = '10MB';
+
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 -- Test HNSW index inserts on non-empty table
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------