I disagree that this is evidence that it is "often" destructive - however, this is mostly a semantic disagreement. As you have pointed out, "destructive" is sub

I disagree that this is evidence that it is "often" destructive - however, this is mostly a semantic disagreement. As you have pointed out, "destructive" is subjective. I mention in another comment that I would consider throwing away the contents of "a single one-line input contained in a prompt" to be non-destructive. It's not a large leap to the contents of a single instant message, whether or not I agree that it qualifies. E.g. if iMessage would throw away a large amount of text un-prompted, I would disagree with iMessage's UX. I'm not sure you really disagree with the core of what I'm saying, which is that "Cancel" is the universal easy way to safely dismiss a modal prompt, and also, regardless of what word you put on the button, if it would throw away a (subjective) threshold of data, you should prompt the user.