Grammatically Questionable Habits

Overuse of "less": "Less" should be used in answer to the question "how much?", and "fewer" in answer to the question "how many?".

Overuse of "weil": Both "weil" and "denn" mean "because", but "weil" should only be used at the beginning of a dependent clause.

Consider, for example, the following sentence: Ich gehe heute nicht zur Vorlesung, weil ich bin müde (I'm not going to the lecture today, because I'm tired). The "ich bin müde" part is a legitimate sentence on its own, so "weil" should not have been used. Correct alternatives would be:

Ich gehe heute nicht zur Vorlesung, weil ich müde bin.
Ich gehe heute nicht zur Vorlesung; denn ich bin müde.

Neglect of "whom": Since "whom" is a such a lovely word in itself, I find it a pity that it is fading into obscurity. It isn't even particularly difficult to judge when "whom" should be used. One can simply consider the analogous "I" vs. "me" problem.

I ate the gingerbread. (Who ate the gingerbread?)
Her Majesty permitted me to enter. (Whom did she permit entrance?)
It concerns me. (Whom does it concern?)

The King and me: Some people, in their eagerness to avoid the "Bob and me went to the zoo" mistake, go too far. What results is the "Fido bit Bob and I" abomination. The best policy is to consider what happens when "Bob" is left out. "Me went to the zoo", for example, is clearly wrong, as is "Fido bit I" (unless my name is Yoda and I did the biting, perhaps).

Did you yet?: If you're going to use words like "yet" or "already", the appropriate verb is "have". Some examples:

Did you let the dog out yet? (questionable)
Did you let the dog out this morning? (fine)
Have you let the dog out already? (fine)

"They" as a singular pronoun: As we all know, this phenomenon did not arise out of ignorance, but from a wish for greater gender equality in the English language. However, even if the noble motive serves as an excuse in most cases (which I bezweifel), it certainly doesn't excuse using "they" when the gender of the person in question is known.

Would of, could of, should of: Nooooo!

Addendum

Now that the Blockkurs is over, here is a little addendum to the recent update:

Anwendungssysteme (1,7): The idea, as I understand it, was to open our eyes to the non-technical aspects of Informatik. We considered questions such as the following: What effects do new technologies (e.g. cars, e-mail, Facebook) have on society? What should we consider when developing technologies (e.g. privacy, usability)? How can human nature and human interactions affect the success of an endeavour? How can they lead to accidents (e.g. as in Chernobyl or the Therac-25 case)?

Neither the course nor the exam were (was?) as bad as I thought they would be. The discussions in the tutorials, in particular, were a welcome departure from the usual dry procedure. I suppose my main complaint is that the concepts covered in the PowerPoint slides didn't really call for thirteen two-hour lectures (well, one-and-a-half-hour lectures, technically). Fewer would have sufficed.

By the way, since I ended up getting a 1,0 for ALP V (and since there is no Nachklausur for Anwendungssysteme -- not that I would bother, even if there were) I won't be writing any Nachklausuren this time around! Glorious freedom!

I will, however, be taking a Japanese placement test at the beginning of April, so that I can (hopefully) finally take a proper Japanese course at the Freie Universität.