Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31645433-20170401183648/@comment-27701762-20170401194940

I've seen these kinds of explanations before. Though it is true that Toby disguised the meanings of LV and EXP through acronyms, we should be careful in presuming that the same is true of every acronym in the game. Most of them appear to be what we would normally expect: G is Gold, ATK is Attack, DEF is Defense, HP is Hit(or Health) Points, etc.

Meanwhile, the areas of the Ruins and the Core appear strange because their names are often capitalized. But we should be careful in jumping to the conclusion that those areas are therefore acronyms, because they aren't always capitalized. For example:

Sans:

"so she went back to the ruins."

"and banished the queen back to the ruins."

"i've been knocking on the door to the RUINs..." (notice the lack of a capital "s," in contrast to other versions) (there is also another version of the line where Sans says "RUINS")

Snowdin Shopkeeper:

"A long time ago, monsters lived in the RUINS back there in the forest./Long story short, we all decided to leave the ruins and head for the caverns." (notice the switch from capitalized to non-capitalized, despite there being no change in subject)

The game narration also offers "Ruins" as a dialogue option with the Shopkeeper once the Barrier is destroyed.

The same is true of the Core: sometimes it is capitalized, sometimes it is all in lowercase (and not just from Sans speaking, though Sans is also capable of using caps as seen above).

Besides those dialogue issues, one of the important things that sets apart any other acronym from LV and EXP is that LV and EXP are explained. No other acronym or potential acronym is given or even hinted to have an alternative meaning. The closest we get is HP, where a potential explanation given is "Horse Power" (during a fight with Aaron). There is never any mention of a potential explanation of what "RUINS" or "CORE" might expand into. All such attempts at explaining what they mean are a jumble of words that fit the letters, of which there are many possible explanations since there is no evidence for any of them.

An alternative explanation that fits the fact that the words are generally capitalized, but not universally, is that the capitalized versions are there to help designate importance: the Ruins and the Core are important areas that might be confused with the more common meanings (in contrast to Snowdin, or Hotland, or even Waterfall), so Toby wanted to make sure that there was no confusion by capitalizing them, or at least when he could remember to do so. RUINS could alternatively have been spelled RUINs, Ruins, or ruins, without losing its meaning, which is simply the name of an area.