Ruby’s frustrating use of cryptic variables

One thing that really bothers me about ruby is its use of cryptic variables such as $: and $?. For example:

$: << "/some/path"

I find this version much better:

$LOAD_PATH << "/some/path"

I vastly prefer the verbose version for its clarity. In addition, an unfamiliar user cannot search $: in google.

The standard Ruby distribution provides a library called English which maps many of these variables to useful names. I think this should be the default, however, and not require an external library (which is not part of core). I also think the cryptic versions should be deprecated and eventually removed to encourage the use of the verbose names.