I came across a web site for touring.
They said in the web page that "... was held in early 2015, and in Fall 2014".
I am so confused by the sentence above, because our teachers used to teach us "in the early 2015", "in the Fall in 2014", "in the late 90s".
Is it incorrect if "the" is omitted?
Please help.
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1It's more common to hear "in the Fall of 2014", I think. – Victor Bazarov Oct 20 '15 at 19:47
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It's actually correct to omit the "the" in "in early 2015".
To my knowledge, native speakers mostly don't put "the" before a year date (year ranges are treated differently though, natives do put "the" in front of year ranges, like "the 90s"), due to semantical reasons rather than grammatical reasons. Teachers make mistakes too!
A native speaker's constructions:
"in the fall of 2014", "in early 2015", "in the early months of 2015"
so on.
answered Oct 20 '15 at 20:48
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2In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it is incorrect to add a "the" to "in early 2015". (This is perhaps what you were trying to imply.) – Martha Oct 20 '15 at 23:35
