''in the year 1867'' vs. "in 1867''

Question

He was born in the year 1867.

He was born in 1867.

Are there differences between “in the year 1867” and “in 1867”? Please explain it to me.

Answer 1

This is a common pattern in English: there is a short, ambiguous way to say something, and there is a long way to say the same thing, which is less ambiguous. Both are grammatically correct. When the context makes the meaning clear, people usually prefer the short form. When the context does not make the meaning clear, people resort to the long form. Formal English is the least ambiguous style of English, so the long form is often required or preferred in highly formal situations. The long form is also clearer in that it evokes associations with words omitted from the short form.

Most years that we talk about today are four digits long, somewhere between 1100 and 2100. We don't commonly use those numbers to refer to things other than years, so usually you can safely use the short form: omit explicitly stating "the year". Below are some illustrations of when and why the long form is necessary or better.

Ambiguity

This sentence is jarring, especially if spoken aloud:

Julia was born in 5.

Hearing this, a fluent English speaker thinks, "Five what? Five minutes?" The phrase "in five" in contemporary English is often a short way of saying "in five minutes", especially to refer to something in the future. For example, "I'll call you back in five"—that is, I'll call you back five minutes from now.

The speaker was referring to the granddaughter of the Roman emperor Tiberius, who was born in…well, to be clear, I have to say…the year 5.

Julia was born in the year 5.

That's clear even if you don't know who Julia is.

Formality

In highly formal situations, like legal contracts, the least-ambiguous formulation is almost always appropriate. Here is some text from a diploma:

The Regents of the University of California, on the nomination of the graduate council of the Berkeley Division, have conferred upon Jeffrey Mishlove, having demonstrated ability by original research in parapsychology, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with all the rights and privileges thereto pertaining. Given at Berkeley this fourteenth day of June in the year nineteen hundred and eighty.

In the extreme formality of that kind of declaration, you certainly aren't going to skip the year. Avoiding ambiguity is especially important when you're conferring a degree in something as bizarre as parapsychology. The extreme formality rules out commonplace ways of inferring unstated matters (such as it being impossible to get a degree from a prestigious university in a pseudoscience).

In similarly formal or scientific situations, you're also likely to see further disambiguation by explicitly indicating the system for counting years: "in the year of the Lord", A.D., anno domini, C.E., etc.

Evocation

A more common reason for including "the year" even when it's not especially ambiguous is because you want to evoke the listener's mental associations with the word "year". Years are long, periodic, contain seasons, and suggest stages of life, generations, and history. This is why a sentence stating when someone was born is likely to include the "the year" even though, with a four-digit number, there's no ambiguity. But when referring to the year when I got my degree, I would likely say, "I graduated in 2006," because there's no need to evoke the associations with the word "year". But when referring to years long ago, like 1867, the word "year" often helps to establish that you're talking about history. Once that's established, though, later sentences are likely to omit "the year".

The song "In the Year 2525", by Zager & Evans, illustrates the use of "the year" for evocation especially clearly. "In the year" occurs before every year mentioned (there are many). The song would lose much of its poetic effect if "the year" were omitted.

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This same kind of thing occurs constantly in English, especially in regard to subtleties of grammar and tense. I just posted an answer about the same phenomenon here. Most textbooks about English don't talk about short and long forms and ambiguity because it can't be reduced to a rule, but the principle is extremely important to understand in order to communicate well in English.

Answer 2

...that he was born in the year of our Lord 1483 - The Life and Acts of Martin Luther by Philip Melancthon

He was born in the year 1265 - Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man By Barbara Reynolds

He was born in 1731 - The Essential Darwin By John Gribbin

All are perfectly acceptable, widely used and are interchangeable.

Interestingly the University of Pittsburgh dept of Communication gives the in the year usage as an example of clutter advising against it and preferring the in nnnn form.

I think that some would say that in the year maybe carries a little more gravitas? A greater formality?