"Complaint"/"Compliant"

       In a previous page-a-day calendar I created, I had a regular feature pairing two words, close to one another in sound and/or spelling but highly contrasting in meaning. One of that sort occurred to me again:

                                          Complaint
                                        Compliant

A couple letters reversed, and the whole meaning's almost upside down. "Plaint" is from a root word meaning "beat one's breast."  "Pliant" has the root of "pli" meaning "fold."  To be "compliant" is to fold oneself together with someone else; to utter a "complaint" is to beat one's breast with/against someone else.

      Two words so near and yet so far.

      Ah, English.