Talk:Almost all

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I wonder if we should distinguish between "almost everywhere" and "almost all". I don't think "almost all" is used in measure theory at all, nor is "almost everywhere" used in number theory. Also, sometimes "almost all" means "all but finitely many". AxelBoldt

Yes, I think they should be separated. I've seen "almost all" used in a measure-theoretic sense, but it's not the usual usage. --Zundark, 2002 Mar 16

The real problem is that both "almost all" and "almost everywhere" are used in all of these contexts. Each of these is a special case of the most general situation (to my knowledge) where such terms are used -- the case where one has an ideal in a power set (or other Boolean algebra). Another example, used in Baire category theory, is meagre sets in a topological space. So these eventually need to be combined, but in conjunction with a rewriting of the article that describes the general case -- and yet gives precedence to the situations where one is most likely to see the phrases (such as measure theory). I'll have to do this someday, but we're probably OK for now. -- Toby 20:09 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)