ERROR 1396 (HY000): Operation CREATE USER failed for 'jack'@'localhost'

I cannot seem to re-create a simple user I've deleted though I'm in MySQL as root.

Special case: user 'jack' existed before, but I deleted it from mysql.user in order to recreate it. I see no vestiges of this in that table. If I do this command for some other, random username, say 'jimmy', it works fine (just as it originally did for 'jack').

What have I done to corrupt user 'jack' and how can I undo that corruption in order to re-create 'jack' as a valid user for this installation of MySQL?

See short demonstration below. (Of course, originally, there was much time between the creation of 'jack' and his removal.)

Much thanks to any comments or answers.

Russ

mysql> CREATE USER 'jack'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'test123';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select user,host from user;
+------------------+-----------------+
| user             | host            |
+------------------+-----------------+
| root             | 127.0.0.1       |
| debian-sys-maint | localhost       |
| jack             | localhost       |
| root             | localhost       |
| root             | russ-elite-book |
+------------------+-----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> delete from user where user = 'jack';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select user,host from user;
+------------------+-----------------+
| user             | host            |
+------------------+-----------------+
| root             | 127.0.0.1       |
| debian-sys-maint | localhost       |
| root             | localhost       |
| root             | russ-elite-book |
+------------------+-----------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> CREATE USER 'jack'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'test123';
ERROR 1396 (HY000): Operation CREATE USER failed for 'jack'@'localhost'
mysql> CREATE USER 'jimmy'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'test123';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select user,host from user;
+------------------+-----------------+
| user             | host            |
+------------------+-----------------+
| root             | 127.0.0.1       |
| debian-sys-maint | localhost       |
| jimmy            | localhost       |
| root             | localhost       |
| root             | russ-elite-book |
+------------------+-----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)