Should a virtual photon be described as a "short-lived" photon?

[.Scott]

I am reading this Quanta Magazine article.

And I ran into this paragraph that surprised me:

If the muon sat isolated from other particles, its g-factor would be exactly 2. But quantum theory requires that all other particles influence the g-factor. As the muon wobbles, it releases particles such as photons, which are too short-lived to show up in detectors. These can release other particles, which can release still more particles. The muon quickly reabsorbs all these fleeting particles, and the only trace they leave behind is that the muon wobbles a little bit more. Through these intricate chains of emission and reabsorption, every particle in existence has some small effect on the movement of the muon.

Of course, photons would not normally described as "short-lived".
Shouldn't the author have tossed in the word "virtual" someplace?

Actually, I see the word "virtual" is included in the diagram that follows.

 

[mfb]

The author is writing for a broader audience, not for physicists. He is a particle physicist, so he knows it's not a very accurate description.

 

[ohwilleke]

The author is writing for a broader audience, not for physicists. He is a particle physicist, so he knows it's not a very accurate description.

And, while it isn't a very accurate description, in this "lies told to children" example, the way in which it is inaccurate doesn't seriously hinder an approximately correct intuition and understanding of what is going on. It is heuristically more helpful than harmful. Virtual photons are "short-lived" in the sense that they have a lifetime of zero, which is the limit that short-lived approaches.