Error Messages, Windows, and Tequila

Hidy-ho good meighbors and neighborettes! I continue my, as yet unquenched, fascination with the Windows operating system[sic]. Does anyone know (I have error reporting set so high it would make your head swim) why errors wouldn't be output to a browser window when they occur? For instance, I typed the following; while($doc = odbc_feych_array($dbDocData) // note the misspelling of fetch that means I was thinking in wild-west dialect at the time, 'fey-uch' An erro went to the Apache log but no error, such as the highly popular "syntax erro" was sent to the browser. Alas, a search of Google revealed nothing worthwhile, probably because I didn't have the right search term. Would someone please shed some light on this? Thanks!