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Every Bentley, Lamborghini, and Porsche (is/are) owned by Volkswagen

I had some difficulties with this because I thought that the answer would have to be "are" because a) There are different objects that are being listed out

b)"every" signifies multiple things so I thought that it would entail that I ought to choose "are"

But the answer key dictates that the answer is "is" and I don't understand why that is.

I was wondering if it has to do anything with the word "every"?

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Every refers to each concrete example of the listed items as individuals -- that is, every Bentley is [X] is sort of a shorthand way of saying your Bentley, my Bentley is [X], my other Bentley is [X], and my wife's Bentley is [X]. So it is referring to a bunch of singular items discretely. As such, the collection takes a singular verb -- is in your example:

Every Bentley, Lamborghini, and Porsche is owned by Volkswagen.

This also applies to words such as each and either. See this link for more info.

Updated to fix a real brain fart on my part.

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  • 'Your Bentley, my Bentley, my other Bentley, [and] my wife's Bentley...' takes plural agreement.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 21:32
  • @EdwinAshworth -- You're right... Today must be my stupid day. Again. I'll fix it.
    – Roger Sinasohn
    Commented Jul 9, 2017 at 2:02

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