Yuck. This is the first one that didn't even bother to include a title of something I've published:
Dear Jon Cogburn,
I am writing on behalf of a German publishing house, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
In the course of a research on the internet, I came across a reference to your paper on "philosophy of mind, language, and logic".
Has anyone in the world ever written exactly one paper on "philosophy of mind, language, and logic"? Not only must the paper discuss all these things, but for the communication to be felicitous it must be the only paper you have written on these topics. And if the author of the e-mail really came across a reference to it, why couldn't they tell me the title? And why the quotation marks? Are these scare quotes and there's some Pythonesque wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing I'm missing. Or are they McWhorterian "shout quotes." Neither one makes sense.
Purported Nigerians trying to get me to help them access frozen funds pen less infelicitous missives.
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing is an academic publisher which specializes since 2002 in the publication of high quality monographs, master theses, diploma theses, dissertations and postdoctoral theses from renowned institutions worldwide.
Really? Really? And not just a new name for VDM Verlag, which has been roundly exposed as a vanity press?
I am therefore inquiring whether you would be keen on publishing the above mentioned work with us.
Aha, thus the quotes! They were mentioning, not using. I gather that in some such letters they use Quinean corner quotes to forestall further use/mention confusion.
In other words, we would make your work available in printed form and market it on a global scale through well-known distributors at no cost to you.
Marketing on a global scale!
But wait, they don't get amazon in North Korea, and so won't be able to see all the vanity press titles that amazon lists for free. Is that really truly global then? What's "LAP Lambert" (scare quotes) going to do about this whole North Korea problem?
I would appreciate if you could confirm your interest with a reply email and we will send a detailed brochure to you.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and kind regards,
------------
Kind regards,
Margit Schmöltz
Acquisition Editor
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing is a trademark of
OmniScriptum GmbH & Co. KG
Heinrich-Böcking-Str. 6-8, 66121,
Saarbrücken, Germany
Feh.
Please, please, please if you get one of these letters, respond by simply sending back this youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-PmuRKIGmo . If enough of us do this, maybe they will up their spamming game a little bit at least.
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