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I'm trying to think of a name for a game I'm creating. Since it's underwater I thought of "Feral Waters".

Can you say that in English or is it rubbish?

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    It's a bit odd, to be sure. You can't really tame or domesticate water, so it doesn't make literal sense. But since waters is often used synecdochically to refer to the things that are in the waters (‘hostile waters’, for instance, does not refer to a characteristic of the H2O particles themselves, but to the enemies or beasts in the water), I'd say Feral Waters as a title works all right, giving a sense that these are waters filled with untamed, dangerous underwater beasts.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Mar 4, 2014 at 22:04
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    Titles don't have to be grammatical, or even make sense. They just need to evoke the right mood from the words they use. Feral Waters sounds cool.
    – Barmar
    Mar 4, 2014 at 22:29
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    You just have said it in English. It's not ungrammatical. But it doesn't make sense. But then, people still think Lewis Carroll had his good points. If your game is good enough, the new sense will be accepted by many people.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Mar 4, 2014 at 22:34
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    @EdwinAshworth have a care, the Jabberwocky is after you now.
    – terdon
    Mar 4, 2014 at 22:51
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    I think this name is very evocative but would really be best if it truly embraced the most evocative sense of the word "feral". The waters must be something that escaped domestication and became wild.
    – nohat ♦
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:00

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Yes, you can say "Feral Waters". It's unusual enough to make a good name for something too.

It's true that waters aren't usually called Feral, but it makes as much sense as wild (as in untamed) waters, or tame waters. It would make perfect sense to say "after the wild waters of the rapids we had 20 miles or so of relatively tame water." Wild, tame, and feral, in their traditional usage, at least, seem to apply to water with about the same validity, but wild and tame have been used that way often enough that they have become commonly accepted, while feral hasn't.

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"Wild Waters" sounds a bit better to me.

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    What is the audience for the game? The content? Depending on these I would prefer "Feral Waters" over "Wild Waters", but this is a little beyond the scope of this site. The answer that is in scope here is Janus Bahs Jacquet's comment.
    – called2voyage
    Mar 4, 2014 at 22:19

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