Confusion. Confusion.

I was writing a blog some other day. I was trying to say something was stationary (i.e. not in motion), but I suddenly forgot whether it should be spelled as 'stationary' or 'stationery'. I knew they are both pronounced the same but their meanings are entirely different. To ensure the correctness of my writing, I had to look up the dictionary to find the right word to use.
After the writing, my mind wandered along similar vein. A couple of other words came to my mind which I felt very easy to get confused and mistaken. Following are some examples but I'm sure there could be many more others. If you know which is which, good on you. If you are not that sure, it's better to consult the dictionary before putting them into writing. Good luck!

aides/aids
aisle/isle
ascent/assent
born/borne
breath/breadth
canon/cannon
complement/compliment
complementary/complimentary
capital/capitol
cast/caste
counselor/councilor
cubical/cubicle
decent/descent
discreet/discrete
ensure/insure
fiance/fiancee
hail/hale
heroin/heroine
immerge/emerge
insolate/insulate
incidence/incidents
instance/instants
kerb/curb
loath/loathe
marshal/martial
principal/principle
recount/re-count
rein/reign
rhyme/rhythm
sensor/censor
stationary/stationery
storey/story
vain/vein
wean/ween
wreath/wreathe

Finally, don't confuse 'we' with 'wee' as we wee.

No Worries

All things in life are temporary. If going well, enjoy them, they won't last forever. If going wrong, forget them, they can't last long either.

WORRY will not take away tomorrow's TROUBLE. It only takes away today's HAPPINESS.

Jobs in the Zoo

One day a young man went to the zoo for an interview of a job as a street performer. The zoo keeper said to him that the zoo's most popular attraction, a gorilla, had died suddenly and he feared that attendance to the zoo would fall off. He offered the young man instead a job to dress up as the gorilla until they could get another one. The young man accepted.
So the next morning, the young man put on the gorilla suit and entered the cage before the crowd came. He discovered it was a great job. He could sleep all he wanted, played and made fun of people, and he drew big crowds to the cage. However eventually, the crowds got tired of him, and he got tired of just swinging on tires. He began to notice that people were paying more attention to the lion in the cage next to his. Not wanting to lose the attention of the audience, he climbed to the top of the cage, crawled across a partition, and dangled from the top to the lion's cage. Of course, this made the lion furious, but the crowd loved it. At the end of the day, the zoo keeper came and gave the young man a raise for being such a good attraction.
So this went on for some time. The young man kept irritating the lion, the lion got angry, the crowds grew larger, and his salary kept going up. Then one terrible day when he was dangling over the furious lion, he slipped and fell into the lion's cage. The young man was terrified. The lion stared at him and prepared to jump over. The young man was so scared that he began to run around and around the cage with the lion close behind. Finally, the young man started screaming and yelled, "Help! Help me!" The lion was quick to jump on his body. The young man found himself lying flat on the floor looking up at the angry lion.
Hastily, the voice of the lion said , "Shut up! Shut up idiot! Do you want to get us both fired?"