This article argues that theories of interpretation and pragmatics offer solid proof that the rule-based model of construction is flawed and that the judicial shift to commercial interpretation is correct. One insight gained by analysing in the light of these theories what the courts in fact do when they construe commercial contracts is the impossibility of limiting the context to any given set of data, since the contextual-dependence of sentences is both the generator and resolver of any set of interpretative hypotheses. Other valuable insights are that a principle of rationality is necessarily presupposed in any institutionalised interactive goal-oriented communication and that the principle of instrumental rationality necessarily presupposed in the making of a contract is that the assignment of meaning shall accord with the commercial purposes of the contract.