English question: Excuse my "presence" or "absence"

[UncleWai]

Sentence:

I humbly pray that this honorable court may excuse my ???????? during the hearing of the joint petition on the grounds that it would............


presence or absence?


"I" doesn't want to go to court.

 

[Confused]

They excuse your prescence

 

[skace]

Would pray be the right word for that sentence? Ask / Request?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Hard to tell simply by the rest of the sentence

presence = i was there
absence = i was NOT there

edit: sorry, didn't see your last sentence. it looks like you want absence.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: skace
Would pray be the right word for that sentence? Ask / Request?

Pray is an awfully strange way to ask it. Ask sounds a lot better.

 

[DXM]

I'd say absence is the correct choice since you want the court not to penalize you for not being there.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

absence

you want them to excuse you for not being there
(otherwise you would be asking them to excuse you for being there!)

 

[GasX]

Neither - try this:

I humbly request that this honorable court excuse me from the hearing of the joint petition on the grounds that it would............

 

[JoeKing]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: skace
Would pray be the right word for that sentence? Ask / Request?

Pray is an awfully strange way to ask it. Ask sounds a lot better.

Agreed.

I'd word it more like
"I respectfully request the court excuse my presence..."