I would feel odd if starting a sentence “In two thousand Bush was elected.”
When speaking, I mostly still say the year two thousand if I’m using it to start a sentence: “In the year two thousand, China exported 2 million tons of tea.”
Also when stating a time range that starts with that year. “From the year two thousand through two thousand and eight, the company’s sales grew an average of 10% per year.”
But in other circumstances I just use “two thousand” without the year. “Yeah, back in two thousand I was earning twenty thousand a year.”
And if 2000 comes in the middle or at the end of a sentence, it could be either-or: “The mayor has been in office since the year two thousand,” “I haven’t eaten this much chili since I left college in two thousand.”
I usually don’t add “the year”, whether at the beginning, middle or end of a sentence. Just “In 2000 we had annual cash flow of X”, or whatever.
[aside] The other day my coworkers pointed and giggled at me for saying “oh-ten”, as in “in '08 we negotiated two agreements with that company, and we expect to complete the deal in '09 or '010”. They thought it was the Funniest Thing Evar. Ok, so I actually meant to just say “10”, but what the F? It’s still '010, there’s just one digit before the ‘0’ rather than two. Duh. [/aside]
It’s different because you wouldn’t ordinarily say “In nineteen hundred seventy eght;” you’d say “In nineteen seventy eight.”
Saying “two thousand” sounds unusual because following the more typical verbal formulation from the last century would lead to “twenty” something. But that’s awkward in turn because we don’t have an accepted naming convention for the years in the “zero” decade.
I just say two thousand. Adding “the year” seems to add this mystical quality to the date that I think we’re all over. Of course, I wonder if the perception of it could be tied to someone’s age. Generally, of course. Maybe it’s just a habit I didn’t develop. I think people who were already adults by, say, the 70s or 80s probably had a different view of “The Year 2000” than people who were raised by those adults and were still minors or barely adult by the turn of the century.
I turned 17 in 2000, and while I remember talking about the year when I was little, it wasn’t that big a deal for me. I think in general, if you were under 20, maybe 25, in 2000, it didn’t blow your mind quite as much as it did for those who were older and had grown up dreaming about “The Year 2000.”
I do occasionally say “the year 2000” and I’m not sure why. I don’t use “the year” in association with any other years (save perhaps the year 1000, but that doesn’t come up often).
I just say “two thousand”, when I have reason to say it, and I occasionally do, as it’s the year I graduated from college and sometimes people ask me that question.