when does CREATE VIEW not create a view?

I am trying to create a view and have run across a, to me, bizarre
occurance.  One CREATE VIEW statement creates the view fine; changing
the name of the view and repeating the same statement does not.  This
has nothing to do with conflicting names as appropriate DROP commands
are issued first.

To be specific, here are the queries and the results:
    -- precipitation_xxx_verify view created fine (see below)
    drop view precipitation_xxx_verify;    create view precipitation_xxx_verify as    select p.id, p.verified,
w.name,    w.country, w.state, w.county,     p.date, p.precipitation / 2.54 as precipitation,        -- 2.54 mm/inch
p.inserted_by, p.inserted_on, p.verified_by, p.verified_on    from precipitation_data p, weather_stations w    where
w.id= p.weather_station_id     and verified != true;
 
    -- precipitation_english_verify view is not created as a view (see below)
    drop view precipitation_english_verify;        -- XXX - fails because a view is not    created (see below)    drop
tableprecipitation_english_verify;        -- XXX - why not a view?    create view precipitation_english_verify as
selectp.id, p.verified,     w.name,     w.country, w.state, w.county,     p.date, p.precipitation / 2.54 as
precipitation,       -- 2.54 mm/inch     p.inserted_by, p.inserted_on, p.verified_by, p.verified_on    from
precipitation_datap, weather_stations w    where w.id = p.weather_station_id     and verified != true;
 
    \d precipitation_xxx_verify    \d precipitation_english_verify
View "precipitation_xxx_verify"Attribute   |   Type    | Modifier     ---------------+-----------+----------     id
      | integer   |      verified      | boolean   |      name          | text      |      country       | text      |
   state         | text      |      county        | text      |      date          | timestamp |      precipitation |
float8   |      inserted_by   | name      |      inserted_on   | timestamp |      verified_by   | name      |
verified_on  | timestamp |     View definition: SELECT p.id, p.verified, w.name, w.country, w.state, w.county, p.date,
(p.precipitation/ 2.54) AS precipitation, p.inserted_by, p.inserted_on, p.verified_by, p.verified_on FROM
precipitation_datap, weather_stations w WHERE ((w.id = p.weather_station_id) AND (p.verified <> 't'::bool));
 
     View "precipitation_english_verify"Attribute   |   Type    | Modifier     ---------------+-----------+----------
 id            | integer   |      verified      | boolean   |      name          | text      |      country       |
text     |      state         | text      |      county        | text      |      date          | timestamp |
precipitation| float8    |      inserted_by   | name      |      inserted_on   | timestamp |      verified_by   | name
   |      verified_on   | timestamp |     View definition: Not a view
 

It seems that the problem is with the word "english" as part of the
view name.  Variants of the name that lack it (e.g., replacing xxx
above with eng, englih, etc.) seem to work fine, but variants that
include it (e.g., replacing xxx with english, eenglish, englishh)
suffer as above.

Is there something special involved in handling view names that would
preclude such names?

Any explanations for this behavior are welcome.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Brook