pester power
- noun
:
poder de insistencia
- The advertisement targets kids because they know about the influence of pester power on their parents' purchasing decisions.
Examples
-
During the holidays, kids' pester power is especially strong when asking for presents.
-
They've got a grip on pester power, and they won't let that go, Santa or no Santa.
Blog text (12) -
Children often use their pester power to convince their parents to buy them the newest toys.
How Influential
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase directly combines 'pester' (to annoy persistently) with 'power' (ability to influence), so the meaning — the ability to influence others through persistent asking — is transparently deducible from the constituents. It is a productive, compositional compound (often about children), so a B1 learner who knows both words would very likely infer the intended sense.
Etymology
Pester power comes from the image of children who pester, that is, 'keep asking and annoying', their parents until they give in. The power part shows that this nagging often works, so pester power means the 'ability to influence someone's decisions' by repeated asking.