beside the point vs pointless

beside the point

adj
  • Irrelevant, moot. 

adv
  • Irrelevantly, off-topic. 

pointless

adj
  • Without points. 

  • Having no point or sharp tip; terminating squarely or in a rounded end. 

  • Having no prominent or important feature, as of an argument, discourse, etc. 

  • Having no points 

  • Point-free; employing the tacit programming paradigm. 

  • Having no purpose; purposeless; unable to effect an aim. 

How often have the words beside the point and pointless occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )