N’importe nawak

N’importe nawak is a verlan version of n’importe quoi and has the same meaning (literally: “whatever,” meaning any old random thing; it’s normally pejorative).

N’importe nawak seems to derive from portnawak, which is a direct verlan inversion of n’importe quoi:

n’im/porte/ quoi
porte/n’im /oiqu
port/na/wak

I first noticed portnawak in the introduction to a radio show, “La panique au Mangin Palace” on France Inter (a good show; you can access the podcast here):

« Bienvenue à toi, dans ce monde archiloufoque et total foutraque où l’élégance se mélange au portnawak »…

Now n’importe nawak has replaced portnawak in the introduction (which is repeated before every show). If Google hits are any indication, portnawak remains more widespread, with 143,000 hits today (December 18, 2007) versus only 73,000 for n’importe nawak.