1 in Morse Code
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One short beat opens 1's code before four long ones take over: · — — — — . Only 0, with no dots at all, leans harder toward dashes than that four-to-one split does.
Nine's Reverse
Flip the order of 1's five symbols and you land on 9's code precisely: dash, dash, dash, dash, dot instead of dot, dash, dash, dash, dash. The two sit at opposite ends of the counted run from 1 to 9, and both land one symbol away from 0's all-dash code — the closest any digit comes to that extreme.
Shortened for Speed
In fast contest and DX operating, an informal "cut number" shortcut substitutes the letter A (dot-dash) for a full 1 whenever it's already clear from context that a number is being sent — shaving three full dashes off a digit that would otherwise be one of the longer ones to key by hand.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does 1 open with a dot instead of a dash, unlike most of the higher digits?
Because the digit sequence counts dots upward from 1 to 5 — one dot for 1, two for 2, and so on until 5 is all dots. Every digit is five symbols long, so at the bottom of that count 1 has just the single leading dot and the remaining four slots are all dashes.