Possible goof_use of 'black hole'

The term was not used in the sense of an astronomical phenomenon. It was intended simply to mean a "terrible place."

Research the infamous "Black Hole of Calcutta" (of 1756) for an example of this use of the term.

I'm always amazed by people's willingness to indulge in uninformed speculation on discussion boards when the actual facts are just a few mouse-clicks away. The facts are these: The possibility of black holes was first envisioned--though not under that name--by British and French scientists in the late eighteenth century, specifically by British geologist John Michell in 1783, and by French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1796. In 1939 the hypothesis reappeared, this time with much more detailed mathematical support, in work by American physicist Robert Oppenheimer and others; and the concept was steadily developed in the following decades. The specific term "black hole", however, wasn't created until 1964 or perhaps a little earlier (it emerged from physics circles, with the coiner remaining unknown to this day), and it didn't appear in a public statement until American physicist John Archibald Wheeler used it in a lecture in 1967.