Reply To: Writing H-shem vs. Hashem

You’re right about writing H-shem that there’s no need for that. If Hashem can’t be written out, then it can’t be spoken either. But it is spoken because that’s the non-holy name. Many people utter the word Ado-shem instead of the word Ado-ai as a hybrid of the Ado-ai and Hashem. The reason behind the dash in G-d is because even though the English word isn’t an actual name, since it’s been accepted as a term meaning Hashem, we don’t write it out completely. For example, when writing Yeshayahu, we end off with a yud and an apostrophe instead of the heh. Just be careful to say Kelikaku instead of the Hebrew word for Elijah the Prophet.