I always wondered about marble & granite countertops and what they must do the edges of my favorite cooking knives. Reckoned the answer would be, “Plastic or wood cutting board.” But then I saw a marble cutting board and now my whole sense of reality is on the brink of collapse. So what gives? Marble & Granite don’t wreck the edge of a good knife?
I can answer this definitively. I sell marble and stone countertops. Using knives on any stone top will ruin the knives. Using knives on a marble top will also cut the top, leaving lines which cannot be buffed out.
Use wood for chicken, poly for everything else.
We will not make “cutting boards”, trivets, or anything else like that from scraps left over. The only thing we will make is a lazy susan that we can attach a heavy duty felt bottom to. We still make the customer sign a waiver holding us not liable when the piece damages their tops or they drop it on the floor damaging it (or their foot!)
From this web site Cutting Boards the answer would seem to be that marble / granite does do a number on knives.
Most of the marble cutting boards I’ve seen are really for serving cheese, etc. at parties, rather than for actual food prep.
I also have a marble board for rolling out pastry.
What MikeG said. My knives only touch wood or Poly. Anything else means war!
My SIL visits on occasion and I have one knife set aside for her to use. I spent $2 on it and she can cut on anything she pleases.
Why wood for chicken? Why not poly? Much more hygienic, I’d think, since I can just toss it in the dishwasher after cutting up the meat.
Thanks for the answers folks! Nice to know I won’t have to check into a loony bin over this.
Preach it! Nothing better than spending 30 minutes rehoning the set only to find one of the kids using it to hack the top off a milk jug. Or dig in the yard.
Don’t do it Inigo - put the cuttingboard back on the counter top… 
This is why cutting boards were invented…
slight highjack-
I wonder when the invention of a cutting board happened? I would guess simultaniously with the stone countertops in castles. I doubt they inlaid wood into the stone…I always see large tables and large cuttingboard tables in the castles I have been in.
Even if you didn’t damage the knife by using it on the marble, your wrist would feel the pain for many days to come.
Here’s a Staff Report on the topic.
I will admit that I use my wood cutting board for more than just chicken but I love it too much to use it for only one thing, plus I clean it thoroughly after cutting up the birdies.
Hmm.
I have three plastic cutting boards and routinely cycle them through the dishwasher.
I think I’m safe.
Just because they sell cutting boards made of something doesn’t mean you can actually cut things on it. Witness all the glass cutting boards out there - a good friend has some, and I sit there wincing as I listen to the sound of her destroying her knives if I’m over while she’s using them.
Glass is probably even worse on knives, but some people would rather go through knives than have a germ factory that needs to be soaked in bleach or near boiled before it’s safe to use again.
Kinda makes you wonder how people managed for all those hundreds of years before the invention of glass/microban/whateverthecurrentfadis chopping boards. And how come restaurants get away with using plastic chopping boards. :dubious:
Restaurants tend to use at least some bleach when cleaning everything and I would think stone work surfaces predate wooden work surfaces. 
Since the OP has basically been answered (don’t do it!) I thought I’d chime in and say I use a single cutting board for all my cutting. Simplistic procedures make sure that no raw meats touch it until everything else has already been prepared… Cross contamination is bad. After all is said and done, I just use this handy product to clean it off. I soak the whole thing in bleach every several uses. I’ve yet to get any form of food poisoning but hey, if I ever do, I’ll consider it both a learning experience and a great opportunity for my immune system to bulk up. 
I’ll have to look for that product. We have several color coded poly boards, the ones with the rubber corners so they don’t slide around. The red one is for raw meat, including chicken. The green one is for veggies only. The brown one is for cooked meats, cheeses and such. Also have a blue one for fish, but it’s not used much.
The boards used for any meat, raw or cooked, get a bleach treatment after being washed in hot soapy water.
No problems so far! 