Many of these so-called confusible words are pairs that have almost similar spellings or sounds. Some are easy to sort out, because one can think of a mnemonic (memory or learning aid) to differentiate them.
In the pair "stalactite" and "stalagmite", think of the "c" as ceiling and the "g" as ground, and -- hey presto! -- a stalactite is the needle-like projection from the roof (ceiling) of a limestone cave while a stalagmite is the one that pokes upwards from the ground in such a cave.
Two other possibly tricky pairings are compliment/complement and stationery/stationary. To pay a compliment to someone is to say nice things to him or her, while complement is used to give the idea of something that completes or brings to perfection. Hence, a ship's complement is its entire crew while, say, someone with a good dress sense almost always gets his shirt and tie to complement each other (that rules me out).
Incidentally, compliments and complimentary have the additional meaning of "being free" or "without charge". Airlines usually have complimentary newspapers on longer-haul flights and the spa's coffee comes with the compliments of the management.
As for stationery/stationary, think of the person selling the pens, books, etc. He or she is the stationer. Stationar will look awkward when spelled out.
Some confusibles are actually redundancies and may of course also confuse. So, we should say "noon” and “midnight” rather than “12 noon” and “12 midnight”. Aware of such a possible confusion, the civil defence folks always tell the public that its practice emergency siren will sound at 11.59am. Did you ever notice that?
Then there is a peculiarly Singaporean usage in which people claim they are not at work because it is their “off day”. I hope my dentist does not have an off day on the day I have an appointment to see him. A check with a good dictionary will show that when one has an off day, one does not seem to do things as well as one usually does.
So, I hope that my dentist will take a day off when he has an off day! That’s right. Many Singaporeans mean “day off” when they say “off day”. In many organisations, you get a day off in lieu of whatever. I suppose someone who is self-employed, such as my dentist, can have the luxury of simply deciding to take a day off and go fishing.
Some people say Singaporeans have no life because they work such long hours. There are "datelines" to meet. Moreover, the bosses are always "pressurizing" them to hand in the work assignment ahead of schedule.
Did you spot the two confusibles in the paragraph above?
The first is dateline. This is strictly the “international date line”, the imaginary line that goes from the North Pole to the South Pole, to the east of which the date is one day later than it is to the west. What most people mean in the paragraph cited above is deadline, which means a time or date by which something has to be completed.
My helping device for deadline is to imagine a spy being pursued by his enemies. If he makes it and crosses the border to his own country, he lives. If he is caught just as he reaches the boundary demarcation but is still technically on the enemy side, his pursuers can still shoot him dead – on the line, so to speak.
As for pressurize, I don’t see how your boss can do that to you. He can pressure you, that is, put pressure on you. In the process, you feel under pressure, or you come under pressure.
You don’t pressurize someone but you can pressurize something. Hence, you travel comfortably in the pressurized cabin of a jet aircraft, or you happily eat that tender chicken meat cooked in a pressurized cooker. In both cases, the air within is maintained, or has come under, controlled pressure.
I should add that some dictionaries do accept pressurize as synonymous with pressure when referring to people. But I feel that the distinction between them is worth keeping.
My final set of confusibles is disinterested/uninterested.
I seldom see the word “uninterested” in print. It’s as if people are not aware it exists. Instead, most people use “disinterested” when they mean the other word.
So, for example, one is likely to read about the children appearing disinterested as the teacher droned on and on. That’s not correct. The children appeared uninterested.
But when you are told a judge, say in a beauty contest, is a disinterested one, don’t despair. You will get a fair chance. Disinterested means the ability to judge a situation fairly because there is no concern with gaining any personal advantage from it.
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