Night falling, we put up for the night in a nearby hotel.

[diamondcutter]

1.As the night fell, we put up for the night in a nearby hotel.
2.Night falling, we put up for the night in a nearby hotel.

Source: An English Reference Book For Senior High School Students, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing

The book says the two sentences have the same meaning, but I think the second sentence should be rewritten as follows in order to have the same meaning as the first one.

Night having fallen, we put up for the night in a nearby hotel.

What do you say?

 

[emsr2d2]

No. To agree with your "Night having fallen", sentence #1 would need to be "As night had fallen".

The two original sentences express an ongoing situation. "As" in sentence #1, means "During the time that". "As night fell" is the equivalent of "As it gradually got darker".

 

[diamondcutter]

I’ve thought of these two situations to use the phrase “put up for the night”.

A: Where did you sleep last night?
B: I put up for the night at Tom’s home.

A: It’s very late. Let’s put up for the night at a hotel.
B: All right.

But I can’t imagine the context in which sentence #1 is used. I’d like to know if sentence #1 should be rewritten like this:

As the night fell, we decided to put up for the night in a nearby hotel.

 

[Tarheel]

Try:

Since it was nighttime and we needed a place to stay, we decided to put up at a nearby hotel.

 

[Tdol]

Night having fallen, we put up for the night in a nearby hotel.

What do you say?

It depends on the time you checked in- if it was getting dark, then the original is right, but if it was dark and full-on night, then your version works.

 

[Tarheel]

I’ve thought of these two situations to use the phrase “put up for the night”.

A: Where did you sleep last night?
B: I put up for the night at Tom’s home.

A: It’s very late. Let’s put up for the night at a hotel.
B: All right.

But I can’t imagine the context in which sentence #1 is used. I’d like to know if sentence #1 should be rewritten like this:

As the night fell, we decided to put up for the night in a nearby hotel.

As an answer to a question, the original is better in both cases. However, if you are telling a story the alternative is better. (My opinion.)

 

[Tdol]

How about:

As night was falling,