Pls help

[WZ]

What do these words/phrases mean:

Much ado about nothing
Space cowboy
Red room ( is there any other meaning besides "a room that is red"?)
Chase down ( can't find this in my dic, but I saw this in a song title)

Please help me choose the correct answer:
She was at the seaside (in/for) 2 days.
I want to spend my weekend (at/on) the beach.

And what's the difference between "pointed" and "pointy"?
Thanks so much.

[Pete]

>What do these words/phrases mean:

- Much ado about nothing = a lot of concern or activity related to something that in reality is completely unimportant.
- Space cowboy = In life an in fiction and drama, the "cowboy" was someone who lived and worked in an untamed and somewhat uncivilized frontier, in this case, the American West. By analogy, the term "space cowboy" presents someone in space (either in rockets or on other planets) as a person filling a similar role in another frontier situation.
- Red room ( is there any other meaning besides "a room that is red"?) = I think that basically it does just refer to a room that is red. Sometimes it will refer to a specific room decorated that way. There is such a room in the American White House. It seems that a number of restaurants or lounges advertise such a room.
- Chase down ( can't find this in my dic, but I saw this in a song title) = (Without a context, I can't be sure, but this comes to mind.) It means the same as "hunt down": to search everywhere for someone or something until the hunt is successful.

>Please help me choose the correct answer:
- She was at the seaside (in/for) 2 days.
-- Far the most likely meaning is "for"; this says how long she was at the beach.
The word "in" is also possible though less likely, especially with no other context for the sentence; this says how long it took her to get to the beach after some other event which must have been stated before.

- I want to spend my weekend (at/on) the beach.
-- The most likely answer is "at"; this shows that you want to spend the weekend in a locality (town) that has a beach/seashore.
If you say "on", you are saying that you want to spend the whole weekend on the sand itself (or maybe on a beach blanket that is on the sand). That would make more sense for an afternoon or a day than for a weekend.

And what's the difference between "pointed" and "pointy"?
Pointed = This is used to describe something that has a (usually sharp) point. It is a neutral descriptive term.
Pointy = This is a relatively informal term. It describes something that is characterized by having a point, or possibly a number of points.

Note-- A good way to get a feeling for the uses of words and phrases is to search for them on the net with Google. Seeing quotes that actually use them in one or another context really helps, especially when you can't find the term in a dictionary. In fact, I often use a Google search to help answer a question when I'm relatively unfamiliar with a phrase. When you're searching for a phrase, be sure to surround it with " … " (quotation marks).