All names on Twitter accounts are prefaced with an @. The symbol is usually called an "at sign" but it originally was used on invoices and business accounts and meant "at a rate of," as in "15 hammers @ $6 = $90."
The theme answers in today's Daily News crossword by Joel Fagliano use the word "at." They would have been more clever if they had used the actual symbol. The "Twitter names" are words which become different words when prefaced with "at":
Good Twitter handle for a seductress? ATTEMPTING
...for a teacher? ATTESTING
...for a musician? ATTUNES
...for a sleepyhead? ATTIRED
...for a eulogist? ATTRIBUTE
...for a tire company? ATTRACTION
Foreign words in the puzzle: AGUA, AQUI, GRATA (as in persona non grata, NYET. Best clue: "Professional stuff" for TAXIDERMY.
C.W. Stewart's Los Angeles Times crossword includes TULIPBULB, MACRAMÉCORD, WINDOWSHADE and HIPSOCKET. The last word of each answer is part of a "Reading aid": LAMP. "Dictation taker" was STENO. Are there any businesses who still use stenographers in 2015? "Miss Cowznofski, bring your steno pad. I need to dictate a letter and my Dictaphone is not working. You can type it later...and be sure to make a carbon copy. By the way, are you finished with the ditto machine?"
The 13x13 NEA crossword has the usual high number of over-used words: ERIE, ETE, EWER, IDEA, IDOL, IRA, MESA, ORB, ORO and RTE. The longest answers in the Universal crossword are HISTORYREPEATED, OURLITTLESECRET and HERBALMEDICINES. If there is a similarity among those answers, I have no idea what it might be. A person might repeat a secret and probably would take repeated doses of a medicine but I have to conclude that this puzzle has no theme. We've gotten so used to seeing themed puzzles, we have a hard time accepting the rare crossword which does not have a theme. At least it certainly themes that way. (Yes, I know that was a bad pun.)
