'HEAD' is not a commit (according to git-checkout)

[Dana Dahlstrom <dahlstrom@google.com>]

What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)

  $ git clone https://github.com/githubtraining/hellogitworld.git
  $ cd hellogitworld
  $ git checkout -b work -t master HEAD
  fatal: 'HEAD' is not a commit and a branch 'work' cannot be created from it
  $ git show -s --oneline
  ef7bebf (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Fix groupId […]
  $ git checkout -b work -t master ef7bebf
  fatal: 'ef7bebf' is not a commit and a branch 'work' cannot be created from it

What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)

  I expected a new branch named 'work' to be created and checked out,
  pointing to commit ef7bebf and with upstream branch set to 'master'.

What happened instead? (Actual behavior)

  I saw these erroneous messages (copied from above):

  fatal: 'HEAD' is not a commit and a branch 'work' cannot be created from it
  fatal: 'ef7bebf' is not a commit and a branch 'work' cannot be created from it

What's different between what you expected and what actually happened?

  I expected a new branch but instead saw erroneous messages.

Anything else you want to add:

  This question seems to show the same problem:
  stackoverflow.com/questions/48671851


[System Info]
git version:
git version 2.27.0.rc0.183.gde8f92d652-goog
cpu: x86_64
no commit associated with this build
sizeof-long: 8
sizeof-size_t: 8
uname: Linux 5.2.17-1rodete3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.2.17-1rodete3
(2019-10-21 > 2018) x86_64
compiler info: gnuc: 8.3
libc info: glibc: 2.29