ESPN Sprint Cup

Well, that'll learn Dale Earnhardt Jr. not to talk like ... well, like everyone on cable TV.

Of course, the irony here is that his father would have been run completely out of NASCAR for dropping the S-bomb, and he would have been standing in a long line of drivers, outside an empty race track.

But the penalty Earnhardt received -- 25 points in the drivers' standings and some pocket money -- for letting the big one slip on national TV is still pretty weird stuff. Yes, there is precedent for this kind of thing in NASCAR, and the Earnhardt punishment was absolutely in line with that precedent.

Still, this being the real world, it seems more sensible just to wash his wallet out with soap, for the good and simple reason that language and performance ought to be held separately.

And because, well, it's just plain silly.

NASCAR, you see, is like every other pro sports league in that money is what matters most. So, when you come up with an image problem like your most visible driver sailoring up before the rightsholder's best camera, you do what you do best.

You go for the money.

Understanding that Earnhardt does very well, you hit him very hard -- with your hand in his pocket. Fifty grand, a hundred, even $250,000 if you think that's what the market should bear for revealing yourself accurately on national television. This may be America, and the First Amendment is still on the books, but NASCAR and its drivers long ago established that the First Amendment has its limits, and its price.

So set a price, and be done with it. Make him howl with displeasure if you want. Hell, that would make for good TV, too.

Oops. H-e-double-hockey-sticks. That costs a paragraph.

But points? Please. That's like having your kid messing up his room, and instead of moving his bedtime up an hour or crating up the PlayStation for a week, you make him show up late for school the next day.

That's bleeping nuts.

Oops. There's a sentence.

Imagine how many championships in every sport you would have to return if this kind of thing got legs.

Every World Series trophy, from John J. McGraw through Jack McKeon.

Every Super Bowl, and before that every NFL and AFL championship.

Every Stanley Cup.

Every NBA championship.

Every collegiate championship.

Every tennis and golf championship, even before John McEnroe and Tiger Woods.

Everything else, with the possible exception of synchronized swimming ... mostly because swearing under water usually leads to drowning, not to penalty points.

Now we're not saying here that swearing is a good thing, although imagining "The Sopranos" without the language means oatmeal three times a day.

Nor are we saying that we don't appreciate a good bit of silliness. I mean, hockey is eating itself, and there is a certain morbid hilarity in that. You go, Jean-Claude. Choke down that kneecap. Tastes just like chicken.

But on this, well, this doesn't rise to the level of real ridicule you like to see in your sports organizations. It just sort of sits there, not quite puritanical, yet not quite unjust. Just stupid.

I mean, they fine guys for fighting in Pit Row, and that's better than conjugating the un-conjugatable? In front of Dr. Jerry Punch or some other mike jockey who, quite frankly, has used that very word a million times to describe his or her producer?

Better to tell your kid, the one with the Edvard Munch look on his face from the Earnhardt interview, "You know what they did to him, son? They took enough money so that if I did that to you, you'd be living in a tree in the park ... naked. And that's our deal. You say that word, that's where you'll be. OK?"

Now that's a concept kids can understand. Even the ones who have been naked in a tree for any period of time are rarely comfortable with the idea of living that way while all their friends are playing Little League and going to dances and getting married.

So there's your solution. Tell the drivers, "If you swear, we'll just take your money, and all those naked kids in the forest will be on you."

That will chasten them, we are sure.

Well, except maybe for Tony Stewart.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular correspondent for ESPN.com