Americans love tests. We obsess over our children's grades, placement exams and SAT scores. We envy those who have at their fingertips the kind of trivia that finishes crossword puzzles and "Jeopardy!" rounds but is often otherwise unpractical. We may be blasé about our international and personal debt, but we're terrified of being outsmarted by fifth-graders.

And we love to spell. Americans have long equated this fairly mechanical process with intelligence and preteens are routinely quizzed on spelling, with the best advancing to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a televised competition that gives its winners super-nerd celebrity status. In this spell-check age, the ability to break apart words by origin or just memorize fluently has taken on mythic allure. In the last five years, three films "" "Spellbound," "Akeelah and the Bee" and "Bee Season" "" have honored this American obsession, which crosses racial, gender, ethnic, economic and social borders.

Last Saturday, more than 30 local doctors, lawyers, librarians, teachers and writers got involved, entering the first Seacoast Adult Spelling Bee. Teams of three competed for a trophy, gift certificates and bragging rights that they, if no one else, have not lost brain cells since the heady testing days of youth. Each team member contributed $100, with proceeds benefiting the Richie McFarland Children's Center.

Being tested as a team is unusual for academic bees, but it is appropriate for adults used to home and office life. You must come up with the solution as a unit "" sometimes you compromise and your teammates save you; sometimes you second guess your gut and fail. The real challenge was less about spelling than working together and accepting the outcome with grace. Perhaps suitably, the first group eliminated was the high school scholars and the winning team was a family. Here's to many more such tests of character.

"" Portsmouth Herald