He was previously an honorary professorial fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
[4] He was the editor of the third volume of The Cambridge History of the English Language.
A festschrift in honor of Lass was published in 1997 edited by Jacek Fisiak.
A volume of the journal Language Sciences, entitled Collecting views on language change (Volume 24, Issues 3–4, May–July 2002, edited by Raymond Hickey) was dedicated to Lass on his sixty fifth birthday.
Other essays in his honor were published in the book Motives for Language Change (CUP 2003).