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Welcome to the forum Jeff. Great idea. I think I recall newspaper columnist Ann Landers being accused of doing that. I'll start this off by considering that such a representation is variously called an "avatar" or "icon" or "bio pic" or "head shot" or simply "photo." So ...
avatar => salveatar
icon => liecon (or maybe decepticon)
bio pic => slyo pic (or maybe myo-pic)
head shot => misled shot
photo => bloato
None of these are particularly clever, but I'm sure you'll get some better suggestions now that we've got the ball rolling. There's a lot of brain power here. If anyone can come up with your requested sniglet, we can.
[Edit: I just learned that "icon" comes from the Greek "eikÅn" = "likeness," or "image." Even though the meaning has changed since computers started using GUIs, that makes me lean toward "decepticon" as my favorite so far.]
We have a particularly egregious example of this with two plumbing companies here in Phoenix. On the one hand, there's Jan Ashford, who until a few years ago used a picture of herself that was probably taken back in the 1960s (and checking her website I now see there's a picture of some other woman altogether). On the other, there's George Brazil, whose iconic picture not only isn't George himself, but combines the head of one man with the body of another.
I got an avatar refused on the American Mensa site because it wasn't current (I don't have my picture taken very often, and just happened to have a college-age pic on my hard drive when they asked for a pic). Or maybe it was because I was wearing sunglasses.
The avatar I use here and on most other online fora isn't me at all. I found it online when I needed a picture to represent the phrase "out of the mouths of babes".
George's looks like an innocent representation of a workman, until you see the name tag on his shirt. It's the name tag that makes it him who is not him.
Is it not easier nowadays to "shop" your photo, even if you're 100 years old, than to bother with a real young photo? You can innocently blame the computer too.
Dan Pawlak responded to my Google+ call for Sniglets with the winner in my mind:
stalefacer
noun
a person who uses an out of date photo to represent himself
verb, stalefacing
to use an out of date photo to represent a person's current image
Yeah, "stalefacer" works for me. Wonder how long it'll take before spell-check stops flagging that. 
But I do still like "decepticon."
Ron Draney said: The avatar I use here and on most other online fora isn't me at all.
Made me wonder why the singulars of "flora" and "fauna" are not "florum" and "faunum." No help at etymology websites, since the words apparently don't exist. Any insights from Latin scholars would be appreciated.
I'm not a scholar at all, but our trusty 1930 Websters says that fauna is singular, with the plural faunas, sometimes faunae. Flora seems to be a singular also- you might know the flora of England, and the flora of Missouri- those would be the floras (or florae) you know about. Both come from the names of Roman gods- one of nature and fertility, the other of flowers.
Are these collective nouns? Is this another topic?
Cheers!
Yes, but it's not universal. I know Greek better than Latin, but the way I recall it, the first declension in Latin works this way:
Masculine: -us (singular), -i (plural)
Feminine: -a (singular), -ae (plural)
Neuter: -um (singular), -a (plural)
The problem is, that's only the first declension; there are others—
...Well, I just looked it up, and I'm wrong even there. The above tells us about the first and second declensions. I was going to say that nouns and adjectives ending in -is usually have their plurals in -es (thus the plural of "crisis" is "crises"); but it says here that works for masculine and feminine, but neuter plurals tend to end in -ia.
As for "flora" and "fauna", I always supposed they were plural, but so far no dictionary I've consulted says so. It isn't a singular in Latin, though; the singular for "blossom" is flos and the plural is flores. The dictionaries all say that Flora is the god of flowers. There doesn't seem to be a Latin noun at all corresponding to "fauna"; Faunus is the god of forests and Fauna is his sister, that's all.
Ron Draney said: The avatar I use here and on most other online fora isn't me at all. I found it online when I needed a picture to represent the phrase "out of the mouths of babes".
Ron, looks like someone else has co-opted your avatar. How rare must that be?
See: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=108814
and scroll down to the 10th post. Unfortunately, "da Doctah" gives no explanation for his choice.
Bob Bridges said
Yes, but it's not universal. I know Greek better than Latin, but the way I recall it, the first declension in Latin works this way:
Masculine: -us (singular), -i (plural)
Feminine: -a (singular), -ae (plural)
Neuter: -um (singular), -a (plural)The problem is, that's only the first declension; there are others—
...Well, I just looked it up, and I'm wrong even there. The above tells us about the first and second declensions. I was going to say that nouns and adjectives ending in -is usually have their plurals in -es (thus the plural of "crisis" is "crises"); but it says here that works for masculine and feminine, but neuter plurals tend to end in -ia.
As for "flora" and "fauna", I always supposed they were plural, but so far no dictionary I've consulted says so. It isn't a singular in Latin, though; the singular for "blossom" is flos and the plural is flores. The dictionaries all say that Flora is the god of flowers. There doesn't seem to be a Latin noun at all corresponding to "fauna"; Faunus is the god of forests and Fauna is his sister, that's all.
Here are the entries in the Online Etymology Dictionary for flora and fauna.
flora
fauna
Both are tracked back to mythological figures of those names, and both were popularized but not first used by Linnaeus in the titles to his mid-1700s publications on the plants and animals of Sweden. It seems these names were customarily used for such publications in much the same was as atlas -- Atlas being the name of another mythological figure -- is used of a publication of a catalog of maps. From this use, the name extended to become collective terms for the plants and animals themselves.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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