I would first check (maybe in the manual page) that -v means version for that program. Otherwise, you may be instructing that program to do some destructive action that happens to be mapped to the -v flag.

Also, that problem makes it simpler to go first for the package manager (unless you already know that the program behaves well for -v).

Good point -- -v could also mean "verbose"...

Good point, but do you know one such program? That might warrant a nudge to the maintainer to change it, as it is highly surprising behavior.

cat -v, which is considered as harmful stuff by some (many?) (http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v). It's not destructive, though (unless you pipe it to something else, but of course you don't pipe it to something destructive if you're just checking the version). :)