I often see in papers something like: <blockquote> 1) This is in general not true </blockquote> or <blockquote> 2) This is not true in general </blockquote> Which I personally would consider to be written formally as something like 1) $\forall x: \neg p(x)$ 2) $\exists x: \neg p(x)$ But I wonder whether this is generally what is meant and if the mathematical community is careful about how they use the word "general" or if it used in a more colloquial sense. Being somewhat of an outsider I find this hard to judge. Partly as it is often used as an aside and rarely a formalisation of the statement is present to check it against. It's the sort of thing you just can't look up.