“Conservative for Moderate. ‘A conservative estimate’; ‘a conservative forecast’; ‘a conservative statement,’ and so on. These and many other abuses of the word are of recent growth in the newspapers and ‘halls of legislation.’ Having been found to have several meanings, conservative seems to be thought to mean everything.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
